Women's knowledge about cervical cancer risk factors, screening, and reasons for non-participation in cervical cancer screening programme in Estonia.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The attendance rate in Estonian cervical cancer screening programme is too low therefore the programme is hardly effective. A cross-sectional population based survey was performed to identify awareness of cervical cancer risk factors, reasons why women do not want to participate in cervical screening programme and wishes for better organisation of the programme.

Method

An anonymous questionnaire with a covering letter and a prepaid envelope was sent together with the screening invitation to 2942 randomly selected women. Results are based on the analysis of 1054 (36%) returned questionnaires.

Results

Main reasons for non-participation in the national screening programme were a recent visit to a gynaecologist (42.3%), fear to give a Pap-smear (14.3%), long ap

SUBMITTER: Kivistik A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3192747 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature