Knowledge, Attitude and Practice regarding Cervical Cancer Screening Amongst Women visiting Tertiary Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal

Abstract

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the commonest cancers in Nepal. Fortunately, it is preventable by detecting precancerous lesions and early invasive cancers by various screening tools. Screening can be possible if women are aware of the problem and if they have positive attitude .Therefore this study was conducted to find out about the knowledge, attitude and practice of cervical cancer in Nepalese women attending a tertiary level hospital in Nepal. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire based study was conducted in gynaecological out patient department of Kathmandu Medical College from January to March 2011. Structured questionnaire was used. Demographic profile of women was noted and questions pertaining to knowledge, attitude and practice on screening for cervical cancer were asked. Results: There were 105 respondents, of whom 65.7% had heard about cervical cancer. However, only 42.9% and 18.1% had knowledge about screening for cervical cancer and Pap smear test respectively. More than 85% of women had positive attitude towards screening but the uptake of Pap smear test in the respondents was only 10.5%. It was found that advancing age and longer duration of marriage were significantly associated with better knowledge, attitude and practice. Conclusion: Knowledge and practice of the screening for cervical cancer was poor in gynaecological patients visiting a tertiary level hospital. However the attitude of women towards screening was positive. Nepal Journal of Medical Sciences | Volume 02 | Number 02 | July-December 2013 | Page 85-90 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njms.v2i2.8941

Association of Knowledge, Attitude and Demographic Variables with Cervical Pap Smear Practice in Nepal

“…Similarly, women in late childbearing age have cumulative knowledge about health care issues and opportunities of more hospital visits than younger women, which means they have more opportunity to undertake pap smear test with each hospital visit. A Turkish study, an Indian study and another study done in Nepal had similar finding regarding late child-bearing age (Bekar et al, 2013;Shekhar et al, 2013a;Shrestha et al, 2013). In contrast to our study, these two studies from Nepal and India and another study from Erzurum, Turkey showed women with high parity to have significantly better KAP values (Karabulutlu, 2013).…”

“…Only one article was found in the world wide web in which 65.7% and 42.9% of participants were found to be aware of cervical cancer and cervical pap smear test respectively in Kathmandu, Nepal. Only 10.5% of all the participants had at least one pap smear test done in that research (Shrestha et al, 2013). Despite more women being aware of cervical cancer and pap smear test, :http://dx.doi.org/10.7314/APJCP.2014.15.20.8905 Association of Knowledge, Attitude and Demographic Variables with Cervical Pap Smear Practice in Nepal utilization of the test is lower than in our study.…”

“…However, percentage of women who have undergone at least one pap smear test in their lifetime (pap smear coverage) has been found to be 15.7%. It is slightly higher than the one (10.5%) found in a research done in Kathmandu, Nepal (Shrestha et al, 2013). Average figure of pap smear coverage in developing countries, developed countries and across the globe are 18.5%, 63% and 39.6% respectively.…”

“…In studies carried out in South Africa, Malaysia and Sri Lanka, women did not like to have pap smear test done because of fear at the prospect that the test may reveal malignancy (Hoque E and Hoque M, 2009;Al-Naggar et al, 2010;Nilaweera et al, 2012 ). Lack of symptoms was cited by participants as the reason for not doing pap smear test in studies done in Nepal and India (Shekhar et al, 2013;Shrestha et al, 2013). These variables can be studied in the future in Nepal.…”

“…According to ICO report (ICO, 2013), cervical cancer screening rate in Nepal is very low (2.4%). Shrestha et al, (2013) found pap smear coverage to be 10.5% in a research done in Kathmandu, Nepal.…”