Effectiveness of couple education and counseling on uptake of cervical cancer screening among women in Southern Ethiopia: a cluster randomized trial.

Abstract

Cervical cancer is a major public health problem worldwide. Women die of the disease due to low early screening practices and its detection at advanced stages particularly in developing countries. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effectiveness of couple education and counseling on the uptake of cervical screening among women. The study employed random allocation of 16 clusters into two study arms. A total of 288 women participated in the study. Structured home-based education and counseling were provided to the intervention group, while the control group received standard of care. Surveys were completed at baseline and end line.This study demonstrated that the proportion of women who had been aware of cervical cancer andscreening grew from 22.9 to 100%, participants' mean knowledge scores showed improvement from 3.18 to 11.99,andcervical screening uptake increased from 2.1% to 72.5% in the intervention group (p < 0.001). Also, the differencein differences of screening uptake between the study groups was statistically significant (p = 0.021).The study shows the effectiveness of the intervention package in improving the uptake of cervical screening in the study setting. Therefore, we recommend that creating awareness, increasing knowledge, and improving women's perceptions through structured home-based couple education and counseling is important to improve cervical screening uptake among thetarget women.