Women with polycystic ovarian syndrome had excess hair, irregular or absent menstruation, and infertility and felt freakish, abnormal, and not proper women.

Methods Indepth, semistructured, tape recorded interviews were conducted in the women’s homes and lasted 45–90 minutes. The interview schedule was broad based and wide ranging, and was designed to allow women to tell their own stories. The interview schedule had open ended questions with prompts and follow up questions. Data were transcribed using simple orthographic notation, and analysis relied on organising sections of the data into recurrent themes.