Feasibility of At-Home Self-Sampling for HPV Testing as an Appropriate Screening Strategy for Nonparticipants in Switzerland

Abstract

The Self-HPV was accepted by nonattendees of cervical cancer screening programs. Self-sampling may promote screening among the unscreened and underscreened population of women in Switzerland while overcoming some practical barriers.

Assessing Acceptability of Self-Sampling Kits, Prevalence, and Risk Factors for Human Papillomavirus Infection in American Indian Women

“…This result demonstrates the feasibility of self-collection among Hopi women. As in other studies, most women reported positive attitudes toward self-sampling [6, 8, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40], with almost all reporting that the test was easy to use, and that they would recommend it to a friend or relative. A minority reported discomfort.…”

“…Most previous studies have also reported that a majority of participating women preferred self-sampling [6, 8, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38], although some have returned the opposite finding [26, 28, 34, 39]. In our study, a higher proportion of women who were not adherent to Pap screening, relative to adherent women, preferred self-testing over clinician testing.…”

“…Reasons for non-participation in Pap screening are multifactorial, and include lack of insurance, inconvenience, difficulty finding childcare or taking time off work, lack of transportation, fear or embarrassment related to receiving a pelvic exam or an abnormal result, limited knowledge of cervical cancer, cultural attitudes, and negative experiences with medical care [5, 6, 7, 8]. Many of these barriers could be addressed by offering opportunities for non-clinic-based cervical cancer screening.…”

Acceptability of self-sample human papillomavirus testing among medically underserved women visiting the emergency department

“…Our results indicate that self-collecting cervical samples with a standard cytology broom is acceptable to the overwhelming majority of women presenting for care in this context. A similarly high level of acceptability for self-sample HPV testing has been reported in other populations of screening non-attendees [31][32][33][34][35][36], reinforcing the potential of this strategy to increase cervical cancer screening coverage among women at highest risk for developing the disease.…”

Barriers to Cervical Cancer Screening in Geneva (DEPIST Study)

“…One way to overcome these barriers is by offering women reimbursement for the Pap smear (which costs between 50 and 70 FRS every 3 years), thereby overcoming the financial barrier, Another option is to offer women a self-sampling HPV test kit (self-HPV), which has been shown to be an acceptable screening strategy in Switzerland for most nonresponders. 26 In any case, cervical screening should be a free service. Self-HPV may partly resolve the organizational barriers and, therefore, may increase participation rates in cervical screening.…”