Research Article, J Womens Health Issues Care Vol: 7 Issue: 5

Knowledge, Attitude and Preventive Practices among the Female Students Regarding Cervical Cancer Screening and HPV Vaccination in Jazan University

Hemalatha T^1*, Rehman W¹, Idrees S¹, Ghailan K¹, Azeez F¹, Othman R², Adnan R² and Mohammed L²

¹Department of Health Informatics, Faculty of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia

²Department of Health informatics, Faculty of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Jazan University

*Corresponding Author : Hemalatha T
Department of Health Informatics, Faculty of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia
Tel: +966 532160636
E-mail: hthanganadar@jazanu.edu.sa

Received: October 01, 2018 Accepted: October 16, 2018 Published: October 22, 2018

Citation: Hemalatha T, Rehman W, Idrees S, Ghailan K, Azeez F, et al. (2018) Knowledge, Attitude and Preventive Practices among the Female Students Regarding Cervical Cancer Screening and HPV Vaccination in Jazan University. J Womens Health, Issues Care 7:5. doi: 10.4172/2325-9795.1000325

Abstract

Keywords: Awareness; Cervical cancer; Human papilloma virus; Pap smear; Screening; Vaccination

Introduction

Cervical Cancer is the second most common cancer, which affects women. Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among women in developing countries. Cervical cancer (CC) can be prevented if one goes to regular screening and if it is diagnosed early. Cervical cancers are causally related to infections by HPV [1]. Approximately 70% of cervical cancers are caused by HPV types 16 or 18. Annually, 288 000 women die of cervical cancer and 80% of these deaths occur in developing countries (Table 1). Infection with HPV is predominantly sexually transmitted which infects the epithelial cells of the cervix uteri that can result in precancerous lesions and invasive cancer. It is a preventable disease; screening and early treatment reduce morbidity and mortality associated with cervical cancer. The Papanicolaou (Pap) smear is an efficient, affordable, and effective method of detecting psychological changes in the uterine cervix [2]. Factors related to the success of such a program include awareness about cervical cancer and its Screening (Figure 1). The WHO recommends that screening should start on women aged 30, a 3-year interval can be considered in the age group 25-49 years, and screening is not necessary for women over 65 years. Saudi Arabia has a population of 6.51 million women ages 15 years and above who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. About 241 new cervical cancer cases are diagnosed annually in Saudi Arabia. Annual number of cervical cancer deaths 84. In Saudi Arabia the campaign for cervical cancer is not adequate. It is anticipated that in Saudi Arabia, as the population ages, there will be a dramatic increase in the incidence of cervical cancer. Thus screening and treatment of these precancerous lesions may be beneficial for preventing cervical cancer and related outcome [3-6].

Figure 1: Knowledge about cervical cancer among the colleges of Jazan University.

Items	Applied Medical College	Pharmacy College	Nursing college	Science College	Public Health and Tropical Medicine college
	N=78	N=57	N=82	N=41	N=139
Knowledge about Cervical Cancer
General Awareness about cervical cancer	58%	57%	60%	43%	55%
No of Cases in KSA	12%	16%	17%	7%	14%
Early Marriage	36%	36%	34%	45%	42%
Sexually Related	51%	31%	36%	26%	25%
Smoking	53%	28%	41%	43%	31%
Most likely age of having CC	45%	65%	78%	47%	51%
About HPV	33%	25%	40%	12%	25%
Symptoms	33%	34%	42%	19%	24%
Risk Factors	53%	42%	38%	31%	38%

Table 1: Knowledge about Cervical Cancer among the female students of Jazan University.

Aims and objectives

1. To assess the Knowledge, Attitude and Preventive Practices Among the Female Students Regarding Cervical Cancer Screening and HPV Vaccination in Jazan University.

2. To assess the knowledge of students regarding symptoms and risk factors of cervical cancer.

3. To identify the attitude about screening and preventive practice of cervical cancer.

4. To identify the source of information.

Rationality from community perspective

Students represent an important section of the society and are the future of any country. This research aids in creating knowledge of cervical cancer screening, symptoms, risk factors, HPV (Figures 2-4) vaccination among the female students of Jazan University which directly and indirectly creates awareness among the family members and also the population of Jazan (Table 2). Early detection of CC will help the prognosis and successful disease management and will help the people to protect themselves from the advanced stages. This research will also provide information to the healthcare professional, policy makers, and authorities so as to create awareness about cervical cancer among the community [7-10].

Figure 2: Knowledge about HPV.

Figure 3: Knowledge about Risk Factors.

Figure 4: Knowledge about Vaccination.

Table 2: Knowledge about Cervical Cancer among the female students of Jazan University.

Materials and Methods

This was a descriptive cross sectional study conducted among the female students of various colleges of Jazan University. All together 397 female students of Applied Medical College, Nursing College, Science College, Pharmacy college and Public Health college participated in this study. The data was collected with the paper questionnaire distributed among the colleges of Jazan University (Table 3). 423 students of Jazan University responded to the questionnaire. The study included 397 responses but 26 were excluded from the study because they did not complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of 4 sections. The first sections consist of social demographic data such as age, marital status, no. of children etc. The second section consist of questions regarding the knowledge about cervical cancer, risk factors, symptoms, prevention, awareness about screening, source of knowledge. The third section consists of questions asking about the attitude about doing PAP Smear Test for herself and recommendation for others (Table 4) [11]. The last section consists of questions asking about their practice for a pap smear (Figure 5) and its frequency. The data provided by students will be maintained confidential.

Table 3: Attitude and preventive practice about Cervical Cancer among the female students of Jazan University.

Table 4: Attitude and preventive practice about Cervical Cancer among the female students of Jazan University.

Figure 5: Knowledge about Pap smear test.

Data analysis

The data were cleaned and checked for consistency and completeness and entered in MS-Excel and exported to SPSS for descriptive analysis (Figures 6-9). Descriptive analysis was used to describe the knowledge, attitude and preventive practices of cervical cancer [12].

Figure 6: Attitude towards preventive measures.

Figure 7: Preventive practice towards screening.

Figure 8: shows that the several sources of information where students know about cervical cancer. The 52% of students said that they gain more information from internet.

Figure 9: Sample questions from the questionnaire.

Results and Discussion

Cervical cancer is considered as a preventable disease as vaccine and detected early. A cross sectional study was conducted out in the female section of Jazan University, KSA, to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practice toward cervical cancer and its preventive and screening measures. Our results show that students from other than medical oriented college have less awareness about cervical cancer. Attitude and preventive practices of cervical cancer is significantly higher among the medical oriented college. Although the attitude toward Pap smear was considered satisfactory, but their practice of it wasn’t the same in all of them [13-15].

Conclusion and Recommendation

Knowledge and attitude of females in Jazan University about Cervical Cancer and its preventive measures were nearly adequate in medical oriented colleges than other college, but their practice was deficient in the entire group [16,17]. Hence awareness workshops must be held. Awareness campaign should be intensified. Need to further educate the females [18-22]. The physician can make more efforts to increase the awareness of their patients about Pap smear and HPV vaccine and their role in preventing cervical cancer. Every year a national cervical cancer screening program needs to be implemented.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Future Scientist Program 5 of Jazan University for funding the research and giving this opportunity to do this research. We are also grateful to the Dean, the Vice Dean Faculty of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Jazan University for their support and all the staff members and students of Jazan University for their assistance and active participation in this research.

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