THE BODY IMAGE AND SELF-ESTEEM OF WOMEN WITH POLYCYSTIC OVARY SYNDROME

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is common endocrine disorder among women in reproductive age. The syndrome is characterized by menstrual irregularities (oligomenorrhea, amenorrhea, dysfunctional uterine bleeding), signs of hyperandrogenism (acne, hirsutism, etc.) and infertility. This clinical manifestations may affect the body image and self esteem of women. The research was conducted to determine the body image and selfesteem of women with PCOS. This sudy is a kind of descriptive research. This study used a total sample of 200 women with PCOS according to Rotterdam criteria who attends the department of obstetrics and gynecology between January 2011 and November 2012. Three forms were used for gathering data: Information form (this form contains some questions related to the demographic profiles of women, body mass index, menstrual characteristics, hirsutism and acne complaints), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and Body Cathexis Scale (BCS). SPSS 13.0 for Windows was used to analyze the data for computing the percentage, arithmetical average and standard deviation, Kruskal-Wallis and independent samples t test.According to the results of the analyze: The mean age of women was 22.37±4.67 and 27.5% of them were primary school graduates. It was found that the mean score of BCS was 141.74±24.43, the mean score of RSES was 4.73±1.24. In this study, body image of women with PCOS was considered to be middle of the upper level. But self-esteem of women with PCOS was found to be the low level.