Quality women's healthcare should be a top priority: Service women's experiences with the health care provided by the Netherlands Armed Forces

Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Fit and healthy military personnel are the basis for a strong organization and good health care is essential to ensure service people's deployability. This applies equally to female-specific health care (FSH). Quality health care can help not only to recruit but also retain more women in the military. However, as there is a lack of empirical studies focusing on service women's experiences with FSH, this study explores female military personnel's experiences with FSH in the Netherlands Armed Forces (NAF), including conditions such as menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause in order to find ways of improving these women's health care and self-care. METHODS: We carried out a qualitative study involving 4 focus groups of service women (n = 17) from all military branches of the NAF (Navy, Air Force, Army, and Military Police). RESULTS: Using inductive thematic analysis, we ascertained 4 key themes: inadequate knowledge and experience among military primary care providers; a perceived lack of gynecologists in the military health care system; difficulties around FSH-related self-care; and inadequate (and inadequately provided) information on menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause. Our findings imply several recommendations to foster good FSH. Changes are needed on four fronts: agenda setting, information, normalization, and implementation. Leaders and role models can bring the topic FSH to the chain of command's attention. CONCLUSION: The NAF are currently not focusing sufficiently on FSH. In order to provide their female personnel with a high quality of care, this will require changes in policy, implementation, and supervision as well as fostering the development of an open culture that enables discussions on FSH.

Read the full article
Report a problem with this article

Related articles

  • More for Researchers

    Access to outpatient occupational therapy services after inpatient psychiatric hospitalization in the Veterans Health Administration

    Abstract: IMPORTANCE: Veterans with occupational performance (e.g., activities of daily living [ADL]) limitations who are receiving inpatient psychiatric care may benefit from outpatient occupational therapy upon discharge, but access disparities have not been investigated. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether ADL limitations, an indicator of need, are associated with outpatient occupational therapy utilization after inpatient psychiatric hospitalization in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and whether this relationship differs by facility characteristics. DESIGN: Secondary analysis of VHA medical record data. Modified Poisson regression was used to model outpatient occupational therapy utilization (yes or no) as a function of ADL limitations, facility characteristics, and sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. Interactions were used to estimate whether the relationship between ADL limitations and outpatient occupational therapy utilization differs across facility characteristics. SETTING: VHA outpatient setting. PARTICIPANTS: Veterans who received VHA inpatient psychiatric care from 2015 to 2020 and lived