Abstract
BackgroundScreening services for cervical pre-cancerous lesions is currently available for all women aged 30–49 years at public hospitals in Ethiopia. Though women’s knowledge and their attitude are determinants for the uptake the screening service, there is limited information on these regards. Therefore, this study aimed to assess comprehensive knowledge on cervical cancer, attitudes towards the screening, and associated factors among women aged 30–49 years at Finote Selam town, northwest Ethiopia.MethodsA community based cross-sectional study was conducted from March 30, to April 15, 2017. The sample size calculated for this study was 1224 and a cluster sampling technique was used to select the participants from three randomly selected kebeles. Epi-Info version 7 and Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20 were used for data entry and analysis respectively. A binary logistic regression model was used. In multivariable logistic analysis, adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval was used to determine the presence and strength of associations between covariate and outcome variable.ResultsA total of 1137 women participated in this study. Nearly one third, 30.3% (95%CI: 27.7, 32.9) of the women had knowledge of cervical cancer, and 58.1% (95% CI: 55, 62.2) had a favorable attitude towards cervical cancer screening. In the multivariable analysis, having college and above education (AOR = 7.21, 95%CI: 3.41, 15.29), knowing someone with cervical cancer (AOR =5.38, 95%CI: 2.38, 12.15), and having a history of sexually transmitted diseases (AOR = 2.75, 95%CI: 1.24, 6.04) were significantly associated with knowledge on cervical cancer. Meanwhile, college and above educational status (AOR = 2.56, 95%CI: 1.14, 5.69), knowing someone with cervical cancer (AOR = 3.24, 95%CI: 1.14, 9.15), and having knowledge of cervical cancer (AOR = 3, 95%CI: 1.97, 4.29) were positively associated with favorable attitudes towards cervical cancer screening.ConclusionThe proportion of women who had knowledge on cervical cancer was low where as relatively, a large proportion of the study participants in this study had favorable attitude towards cervical cancer screening. Educational status, knowing someone with cervical cancer, a history of sexually transmitted diseases was factors affecting both women’s knowledge and their attitude. Having knowledge on cervical cancer was factor affecting attitude towards screening services. Provision of information, education, and counseling about the disease and screening service are mandatory to address their knowledge gap and to improve women’s attitude towards screening service.
Highlights
Plain English summary Screening services for cervical pre-cancerous lesions are currently available for all women aged 30–49 years at public hospitals in Ethiopia
This study aimed to assess the comprehensive knowledge of cervical cancer, attitudes towards the screening, and associated factors among women aged 30–49 years at Finote Selam town, northwest Ethiopia
Socio demographic characteristics participants A total of 1137 women participated in this study giving a response rate of 93.7%
Summary
Screening services for cervical pre-cancerous lesions is currently available for all women aged 30–49 years at public hospitals in Ethiopia. This study aimed to assess comprehensive knowledge on cervical cancer, attitudes towards the screening, and associated factors among women aged 30–49 years at Finote Selam town, northwest Ethiopia. East Africa has the highest sub- regional incidence of cervical cancer in which the age standardised rate is 42.7 per 100,000 women, followed by Southern Africa with 31.5 per 100,000 women [3]. In Ethiopia, an estimated 7095 new cervical cancer cases were diagnosed, and 4732 die annually from it in 2012 [4]. New cases of cancer were diagnosed in the Black Lion specialized Hospital data set between 1997 and 2012, and the result revealed that 31.8% were cervical cancer patients [5]. A meta-analysis noted that the risk of dying from cervical cancer was 35% lower among women invited to screening with cytology testing than among women who were not offered screening services [8]
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