KNOWLEDGE OF PHYSICIANS WORKING IN PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CENTERS TOWARD SCREENING TEST OF CERVICAL CARCINOMA IN IRAQ.

Abstract

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the most common and most serious malignancies. In the last ve years, cervical cancer is the 2nd most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world, occupying the 2nd frequency in women (after breast cancer). Objectives:Aim of this study is to evaluate the level of knowledge of physicians about screening program of cervical carcinoma and nding the most common barriers to surmount them. Methodology:Across sectional study was carried out on 300 physicians in primary health care centers in Iraq. Result: The result revealed that most participant physicians' knowledge about when to start screening for cervical cancer in average was ≥21 years of age (81%), and (53.7%) of them revealed the time to have a women rst pap smear is after rst sexual intercourse. This study shows that mostparticipant physicians' knowledge about intervals between pap smear screening for cervical cancer was 3 years (23.3%). Conclusion: According to the results, we can conclude that knowledge score regarding screening test of cervical carcinoma is accepted in (70.7%) of physician participate in this study. Also we conclude that the main barrier to apply screening test for cervical carcinoma is the anxiety proplem in patient been of false positive pap smear results and lack of resources for screening implementation.