Awareness On Cervical Cancer and Utilization of Pap-Smear (Papanicolaou) Test Among Adult Women-A Hospital Based Study

Background: Cervical cancer, a major public health problem and stood in the 2nd position among other cancers in women and accounts more than 84% new cases worldwide and more than 85% death from middle and low income countries. It ranks as the 1st most frequent cancer among women of age 15 to 44 years in Nepal. Purpose: To assess the awareness of cervical cancer and screening test and its practice among women in Nepal. Method: A cross sectional study was conducted from June 2017 to August 2017 among 409 women at the Gynecology Out Patient Department (OPD) of Helping Hands Community Hospital, Kathmandu. Prior to data collection, necessary ethical approvals were taken from concern authorities and informed consents were taken from the participants. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire with a face-to-face interview. Data were analyzed and presented in the tabular form with the frequency and percentage. To see the significant differences between variables chi square test was used and p value of <0.05 was set as the level of significance. Knowledge related factors were obtained using a Likert scale. Results: The mean (standard deviation) age of the women was 33.52 (9.98) years. Among total respondents, 32.8% heard about cervical cancer and among them, only 13.4 % of them had knowledge of the causative agent the HPV and about 21.1% of them had an idea about the vaccine. Women who had heard about cervical cancer, only 13% had knowledge on the Pap smear test. Among the women who have heard about cervical cancer, only 23.9% of them had experienced on the Pap smear test. Among the women who had knowledge of cervical cancer (134), only 9.7% (13) of them had heard about the HPV vaccine. This study showed that heard about cervical cancer, knowledge on Pap smear test and knowledge of the HPV vaccine are significant difference with the education level of the respondents (p <0.01). Conclusion: Enrollment of women in academic education and adequate information through different media targeting eligible women is needed to raise awareness to change their behaviors to utilize the screening facility.