Influencing Reasons for Participation and Nonparticipation of Women in Cervical Screening

Abstract

Introduction and background: Cervical cancer is one of the leading responsible condition for causing
high death rate among women after breast cancer. It is preventable and curable disorder, but the prevalence
of cervical cancer remaining too high in India. Majority of women do not aware of cervical screening
procedures. Maharashtra is standing in second position in possessing more number of cervical cancer cases.
Methodology: A quasi- experimental pretest and post research design was used to execute the study. This
study was conducted in selected hospitals of PCMC. The samples were the women age group between 30-
60 years attending Gynec OPD. The systemic random sampling techniques was used to select the samples.
Total sample size was 501. A self-administered tool was administered to find the reasons for participation
and nonparticipation in cervical screening. Tool and content validity was done. The reliability of the tool
was done r value is = 0.88. The study proposal has been approved by the Ethical Committee, MGM Institute
of Health Sciences, Kamothe, Navi Mumbai. Permission has been taken from the concerned authority of
the selected urban health care centers for data collection. The content was prepared on prevention and early
detection of cervical screening in the form of video and modules in their regional languages.
Results: Majority of participants among three experimental groups, about 38.32 % in verbal group, 41.91%
in written group and 40.71 % in video group have responded that they could not take part in the cervical
screening programme as they are very embarrassed with cervical screening procedure. While others had
responded that, I am healthy I do not have to go for this test, some women said, I have only one sexual
partner so I don’t require this test. A few women have assumed that the test is very expensive, thinking
that not required the Pap test as no symptoms of cancer observed and other have stated that don’t know the
frequency of test.
Conclusion: A key strategy to improve the attendance of the women for cervical screening is to spread the
awareness on prevention and early detection of cervical cancer by using various educational methods.