Prevalence of Bacterial Vaginosis and Its Association with Risk Factors among Nonpregnant Women: A Hospital Based Study

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is an ecological imbalance of the vaginal microbiota affecting mostly women of reproductive age group. This study was carried out among 160 nonpregnant women registered at the Outpatient Department of Gynaecology/Obstetrics of KIST Medical College Teaching Hospital, Imadol, Lalitpur, Nepal, from November 2014 to May 2015. The aim of the study was to assess the association of the risk factors with BV and analyze the type of bacteria associated with BV. Nugent's scoring method was used for diagnosis of BV in this study. The overall prevalence of BV was 24.4% among symptomatic patients. Douching was statistically related to BV (<i>P</i> = 0.015). Also, BV was significantly associated with consistency (<i>P</i> = 0.0001), odor (<i>P</i> = 0.02), and amount of abnormal vaginal discharge (<i>P</i> = 0.09). Contraceptives users on anatomical sites were found more prone to BV than those who did not use contraceptives on anatomical sites. <i>Pseudomonas</i> spp., <i>Escherichia coli, Acinetobacter</i> spp.<i>, Proteus</i> spp.<i>, Klebsiella</i> spp.<i>, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Enterobacter</i> spp.<i>, Citrobacter</i> spp.<i>, Staphylococcus aureus,</i> Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci (CoNS), and <i>Streptococcus agalactiae</i> were associated with BV and out of those <i>Lactobacillus</i> spp. was the predominant organism. The higher prevalence of BV among symptomatic patients indicates interventions should be applied to reduce the incidence of stillbirth, abortion, and sterility.