Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Toward Cervical Cancer Screening and Associated Factors Among College and University Female Students in Dire Dawa City, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Cervical cancer is preventable and, in most cases, curable if identified at an early stage. Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality Ethiopia with screening accounting for only 0.8%. Furthermore, female students and young adults in colleges and universities’ have a high prevalence of genital HPV infection because of their risky sexual behavior, lack of knowledge on screening and very few students receive screening services. This study aimed to assess the Knowledge, attitudes, and practice toward cervical cancer screening and its associated factors among female college students in Dire Dawa City, Ethiopia. Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted using a multistage sampling technique from November to December 2020, among 730 female college students in Dire Dawa. Descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression were used to describe each variable and identify associations between the dependent and independent variables respectively. Adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval and P-value <.05 used to determine the association. Results: The results showed, only 64 (9.3%) participants were knowledgeable, 413 (60.1%) had positive attitudes and 17 (2.5%) were screened in their lifetime. Age group, years of study, and history of cervical cancer practice were significantly associated with knowledge of cervical cancer screening. The year of study was based on cervical cancer smears and the number of screenings was significantly associated with attitude. Conclusion: This study showed that students’ knowledge of cervical cancer screening is low. Overall attitudes toward cervical cancer screening among female students were good, but only a small proportion of students had undergone cervical cancer screening. The most common reasons for the low screening practice were lack of information and undecided. There is a need to promote different campaigns for cervical cancer screening programs, in order to increase awareness.

Knowledge, attitude, and practice of cervical cancer screening and its associated risk factors among family planning service users at Debre Tabor town health facilities, North Central Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study

“…23 This disparity could be due to a variety of factors, including differences in the study setting, study population, sample size, and study period. On the contrary, our finding was lower than a similar study conducted in Gondar (90%), 15 Gurage Zone, Southern Ethiopia (83.8%), 11 Dire Dawa, Eastern Ethiopia (84.4%), 24 Adigrat Town, Northern Ethiopia (79.6%), 25 Gabon (91.6%), 26 and Uganda (88.2%). 27 This discrepancy could be due to differences in the study setting and study population.…”

“…This finding was concordant with the studies conducted in Wolaita, Southern Ethiopia (43.1%) 1 and Adigrat (46.4%). 25 However, our report was higher than the studies done in Addis Ababa (27.7%), 16 Gondar town (19.9%), 19 Finote Selam (30.3%), 20 Gurage Zone (26.2%), 11 Dire Dawa (9.3%), 24 Nepal (13%), 28 Cameroon (3.6%), 29 Perambalur (36.5%), 30 and India (11%). 23 This variation might be due to differences in time, sample size, and sociodemographic features of study participants.…”

“…Nearly one-third, or 36.6% (95% CI: 32.9–39.8), of the respondents had a positive attitude toward cervical cancer screening. This finding was lower than the report in the two Gondar studies (67.7%, 58.2%), 15,19 Finote Selam (58.1%), 20 Wolaita (45.5%), 1 Wollega (44.1%), 22 Ambo (46.1%), 17 Dira Dawa (60.1%), 24 Adigrat (53.3%), 25 China (96%), 33 Perambalur (83.8%), 30 and Nepal (85%). 28 This discrepancy might be due to socioeconomic, demographic, study setting, and study population differences.…”

“…This finding was in line with the studies done in Wolaita (22.9%) 1 and Cameroon (20%). 29 However, this finding was higher than the studies conducted in Gondar (0.5%), 15 Ambo (6.3%), 17 Gurage Zone (3.8%), 11 Dire Dawa (2.5%), 24 Ghana (0.8%), 18 Nepal (13.6%), 28 Perambalur (2.7%), 30 and India (9.5%). 23 On the other hand, the findings of the present study were lower than those reported in Addis Ababa (25%), 16 Adigrat (38.1%), 25 Rwanda (28.3%), 32 Gabon (65.1%), 26 and China (63.7%).…”

“…20 However, our finding was lower than other similar studies. 11,17,21,24,25,27 This difference might be due to differences in media coverage among the countries and towns.…”