Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards cervical cancer and screening amongst female healthcare professionals: a cross-sectional study

Heena, Humariya, Durrani, Sajid, AlFayyad, Isamme, Riaz, Muhammad ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5512-1745, Tabasim, Rabeena, Parvez, Gazi and Abu-Shaheen, Amani 2019. Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards cervical cancer and screening amongst female healthcare professionals: a cross-sectional study. Journal of Oncology 2019 , 5423130. 10.1155/2019/5423130

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Abstract

Background. Cervical cancer is a potentially preventable disease if appropriate screening and prophylactic strategies are employed. However, lack of knowledge and awareness can result in underutilization of the preventive strategies. Healthcare professionals with adequate knowledge play a huge role in influencing the beliefs and practices of the general public in a positive way. We assessed the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of cervical cancer and screening amongst female healthcare professionals at King Fahad Medical City (KFMC), Saudi Arabia. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional study on female healthcare professionals at KFMC. Data were collected using a predesigned, tested, and self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire included specific sections to test the participants’ knowledge, attitude, and practices related to cervical cancer and its screening. Data analysis was done using descriptive statistics. Results. Data from 395 participants were included in the final analysis. The majority of the study participants were nurses (n = 261, 66.1%). The mean age of the participants was 34.7 years and 239 (60.5%) participants were married. Only 16 (4.0%) participants appeared to have good level knowledge of cervical cancer (in terms of risk factors, vulnerability, signs and symptoms, ways of prevention, and ways of screening) and 58 (14.7%) participants had fair level knowledge. A total of 343 (86.8%) participants believed that Pap smear test is a useful test for the detection of cervical cancer and 103 (26.2%) participants had undergone Pap smear testing. Conclusions. Our study population showed poor knowledge of cervical cancer as a disease. The participants had a fair knowledge of Pap smear testing, but only a quarter of the cohort had undergone testing themselves. This study highlights the need for formal educational programs for the healthcare workers at KFMC specifically to improve their knowledge regarding the risk factors and early signs and symptoms of cervical cancer.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Medicine
Additional Information:	This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
Publisher:	Hindawi Publishing Corporation
ISSN:	1687-8450
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 December 2021
Date of Acceptance:	28 August 2019
Last Modified:	23 May 2023 19:40
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/145912

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