Bacterial Vaginosis Prevalence: Is It Really Common?

Abstract Introduction: Bacterial vaginosis (BV) represents the most common infection among women of reproductive age, with a prevalence rate of 23%. It develops when multiple microorganisms infect the vagina and decreases the colonization of the lactobacilli in the vaginal mucosal epithelium. Objective: This research is done with the aim to evaluate the prevalence of the bacterial vaginosis in our study population. Material and methods: The patient information was gathered retrospectively from the hospital's database covering the period from September 1, 2023, to August 31, 2024. The data was then entered in the SPSS version 30. T test was applied to the quantitative and chi-square test was applied to the qualitative data respectively. Results: A total of 1645 vaginal swabs were analyzed from symptomatic patients. Out of which full blown BV with Nugent score of 7 and above was found in 11.9%(n=196) of the patients , while 67.78% ( n= 1115) of the patients had altered vaginal flora. In 32.2%(n=530) of the patients, Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) was not found as the Nugent score was less than 3.. BV was most common in the reproductive age group, especially in the patients below 38 years. It was found that 92.64% ( n=1033) of the patients who have altered Nugent score belong to the age group between 18-38 years and 84.18% of the patients with the full-blown BV were also found to belong the same age group., The p-Value of 0.001 showed that the relationship is significant. The patients with the parity of 2-3 are more prone to have abnormal Nugent score, however the p-Value of 0.273 suggests that the relationship is not significant. Only 18.0% ( n=252) of the patients were pregnant out of which 74.6%( n=188) have abnormal Nugent score, which makes 11.4% of the total study population. The total number of the patients who were found pregnant were 252 and out of which 28.17% (n=71) were discovered to have BV. The total number of the positive swabs were 196 (n=196) out of which 36.22% (n=71) were found to be pregnant. The p-value of 0.001 indicates the significance of the results. Conclusion: BV was detected in 11.9% in the symptomatic patients, while 67.7% of the patients had altered vaginal flora depicted by the intermediate Nugent score. BV is more common in the reproductive age group and in pregnant patients however no significant relationship was found with the parity. We recommend routine BV screening for all symptomatic patients in reproductive age group. A prospective study with larger sample size is recommended to explore associated risk factors and outcomes. Key words: vaginitis, bacterial vaginosis, normal vaginal flora, Nugent score, pregnancy, vaginal microbiota.