AbstractObjectiveTo explore the perception on PCOS and its prevalence among adolescent and young women.MethodsThe study was conducted over 2 year period in a tertiary care teaching hospital from Eastern India. A pre-formed, validated questionnaire was used to record the details. Descriptive statistics was used to report the findings.ResultsOf 965 young patients with mean (SD) age 20.64 (2.1) years, 27 (2.79 %) were aware of an entity called PCOS. Awareness among adolescents with PCOS was 25.9 % (7/27). All aware patients belonged to the urban sector with professionals constituting around 48%, of which 11% were students. The major source of information among aware patients was from doctors (40.7%), and friends and Internet (25.9%); rest being from books, newspapers, and teachers. Majority (70%) were aware that diet restriction and exercise were the primary modalities of treatment, whereas, only 3.7% knew about the role of contraceptive pills in PCOS.ConclusionsAwareness regarding PCOS among the young women is very low mainly in the rural set up. Doctors and health staffs should play a major role in spreading awareness of the entity to prevent long term complications.
