Knowledge, Attitude, Practice of Cervical Cancer Screening and Its Associated Factors Among Female Students in Hawassa Universitycollege of Medicine and Health Science Hawassa
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Date
2015-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background: Cervical cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality among women
in the world. It has been estimated that about 500,000 cases of cervical cancer occur worldwide
yearly, with 85% occurrence in resource-poor countries. In Ethiopia, cervical cancer is the 2nd
most common female cancer in women aged 15 to 44 years and 7,095 new cervical cancer cases
are diagnosed annually. The most common factors which contribute for cervical cancer and its
prevention are: inadequate knowledge about the disease, early initiation of sexual intercourse and
multiple sexual partner. Therefore; basic knowledge and an early screening for cervical cancer is
a key intervention in reduction of maternal deaths secondary to cervical cancer.
Objectives: To assess the knowledge, attitude, practice of cervical cancer screening and its
associated factors among female students in Hawassa University College of Medicine and Health
Sciences, Hawassa Ethiopia 2015.
Methods: A cross sectional quantitative survey was conducted using a pretested anonymous self-
administered questionnaire among female students in Hawassa University College of Medicine
and Health Sciences from January, 2015 to May 30. The study subjects were selected using by
lottery method of simple random sampling technique and a total of 422 female students aged 18-
26 years took part in the study. Six diploma midwives were employed to facilitate data collection.
The collected data were entered in using EPI-info version 3.5.1 software and exported to SPSS
version 20 for further analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was
conducted to examine the factors associated with knowledge, attitude and practice towards
cervical cancer screening. For data processing and analysis, SPSS version 20 was used
Results: overall, (76.8%) of the female students had heard about cervical cancer. Risk factors
like having multiple sexual partners and initiation of sexual intercourse at early age by and Human
papilloma virus were mainly reported risk factors for cervical cancer by 189 (49.7%) and 47.4%
of respondents respectively. Of the risk factors, 189 (49.77% ) of students indicated that having
multiple sexual partners and initiation of sexual intercourse at early age were commonly reported
risk factor for cervical cancer while 180(47.4%) of them identified Human papilloma virus
But only 202(53.3%) of the respondents were heard about cervical cancer screening, and almost
near to half 48.2 of the respondent were not knew whether there is screening procedures to detect
early stages of cervical cancer. There were poor practice of cervical cancer screening among
female students. Also almost near to half 170(44.7%) of the students had negative attitude towards
screening practice.
Conclusion: More than half of the respondents knew about risk factors and symptoms of cervical
cancer fairly and most of the students heard about cervical cancer. But most of the respondents
were not heard weather there is screening methods for early detection of cervical cancer and poor
practice of screening.
Keywords:
Cervical cancer, Cervical cancer screening, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice
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Keywords
Cervical cancer,, Cervical cancer screening, Knowledge, Attitude