Knowledge, attitude and practice of cervical cancer screening – Papanicolaou test (Pap smear) among female health care providers in Port Harcourt

Abstract

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common malignancy affecting women globally and the commonest female genital cancer in Nigeria. It can be prevented through regular cytologic screening by Pap smear. The general public sees health care providers as models, therefore, their attitudes and actions would predictably influence societal health behaviour.
Aim: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of female health workers in Port Harcourt, towards cervical cancer screening.
Methods: A questionnaire-based survey of 133 female health care providers at the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital and the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, which evaluated the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, knowledge of cervical cancer, attitude and utilization of cervical cancer screening service was carried out. The data were entered into SPSS version 11.0 which was used for analysis and results are presented as Frequency tables, percentages and means. The level of significance was set at p-value <0.05.
Results: Up to 123 (92.2%) respondents had knowledge of Pap smear as a screening tool for cervical cancer, and 96 (72.2%) respondents recognized early sexual debut as a risk factor. Nine-three (70%) respondents would be willing to have Pap smear.  Only 17(12.8%) had done a Pap smear previously.
Conclusion: The high knowledge of cervical cancer screening and their positive attitudes towards it did not translate to service utilization by female health professionals in Port Harcourt.There is therefore need to improve uptake of Pap smear by health professionals in order to improve their effectiveness in encouraging the public to utilize this service.

Keywords: Cervical cancer, Pap smear, Female health workers, Knowledge, Attitude, Practice