ABSTRACT

Background: Cervical cancer is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in females. A number of causes are there that contribute to the advanced stage of disease at presentation but the lack of knowledge remains the foremost factor that contributes to this. Furthermore, there is a lack of screening among general population. Lack of knowledge and awareness about the causes and risk factors of cervical cancer is leading to increase in incidence of cervical cancer day by day. The target audience of this study were the local population of females that comes in tertiary care hospital of the metropolitan city.

Methods: In this study, 350 consecutive patients were included after informed consent. A predesigned Questionnaire was utilized to evaluate the knowledge of participants regarding cervical cancer. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS 17.0. Mean and standard deviation were calculated for age. Frequency and percentage were calculated for parity and knowledge regarding cervical cancer.

Results: The mean age of participants was 43.34 ± 15.06 years. There were 192 (54.86%) females of non-screened type and 158 (45.14%) females of screened type. There were 98 (28.0%) females who had adequate knowledge about cervical cancer and 252 (72.0%) females were unaware or had poor knowledge of the disease. There was insignificant difference observed among all females of different parity for adequate knowledge (P>0.05). There was significant difference observed among all females of different education level for adequate knowledge (P<0.05). There was significant difference observed among all females of different SES class for adequate knowledge (P<0.05).

Conclusions: This study concluded that only one fourth of the females are aware of this problem and remaining are, either unaware or have a poor knowledge of cervical cancer. Before embarking on cervical screening, there is immense need to increase the public awareness by campaigns.

Keywords: Cervical cancer, knowledge, females, reproductive age