The associated symptoms produced by pathological discharge include itching, burning sensation, offensive odour and dyspareunia. The management of vaginal discharge is often based on syndromic approach. The main disadvantage of this approach is misdiagnosis and injudicious treatment with multiple antimicrobials leading to development of drug resistant strains and economic burden on the patient. Simple laboratory tests like gram staining, wet mount, whiff test etc can help in establishing the etiological agent and institution of the appropriate therapy. Hence based on the above literature findings the present study was planned to evaluate the abnormal vaginal discharge and the causative microbes responsible for it. The present study was planned in Department of Microbiology, Mata Gujri Memorial Medical College and Lions Seva Kendra Hospital, Kishanganj Bihar from July 2000 to feb 2001. Total 50 adult females of aged 21 – 60 years observed with abnormal vaginal discharge were enrolled in the present study. The detailed data regarding the complaints, personal history, menstrual history, coexisting diabetes mellitus, use of drugs including oral contraceptive pills, antibiotics, antifungals, antiprotozoals in the recent past. In our study bacterial vaginosis is the most common cause of symptomatic vaginal discharge followed by candidiasis and trichomoniasis. From the present study and the reported literature it can be concluded that abnormal vaginal discharge was decreased in the women who had good knowledge and who used good hygienic practices, in contrast, there was increase in the abnormal vaginal discharge in those women who had poor knowledge score, who didn't seek examination till they cannot tolerate the symptoms. Also the most ideal approach is microbiological diagnostic approach for etiological diagnosis of symptomatic vaginal discharge. This helps clinician to institute appropriate antimicrobial therapy to treat these conditions and prevent long term sequelea and also prevent the over treatment and development of resistance against various antibiotics.