Abstract
Despite being a preventable cancer burden, cervix cancer remains an important public health problem in India. Major reasons behind this are lack of awareness both in the health care providers and community as well as availability of the resources at all the levels of the existing health care system. Present study explores level of knowledge, attitude and practices about cervix cancer prevention and control among medical and nursing students of a medical college in Mumbai, India.
Randomly selected 72 (48%) medical and 78 (52%) nursing students from a medical college in Mumbai who have been taught about cervix cancer were included after obtaining written informed consent. Strict confidentiality was maintained during data collection and analysis. All necessary permissions were obtained.
There were significant differences in the medical and nursing students as far as knowledge about presenting symptoms of cervix cancers (P= 0.016), cause of cervix cancer (P= 0.000), availability of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine (P= 0.000) respectively. Though 12(27.27%) of female medical and 17 (27.86%) of nursing students have perceived risk of getting cervix cancer, only 3(4.16%) medical students and 7 (8.97%) of nursing students have completed HPV vaccination.
A gap existed between knowledge, attitude and practices of undergraduate nursing and medical students. Well sensitized health care providers can play an important role in the cervix cancer prevention and control activities in our country.
Keywords: cervix cancer, prevention, control, future health care providers, India
References
- Globocan 2012: Estimated Cancer Incidence Mortality and Prevalence Worldwide 2012, available on http://globocan.iarc.fr/Pages/fact_sheetsaspx, accessed on 29.8.2016).
- Sankarnarayan , BM Nene, SS Shastri et al. HPV Screening for Cervical Cancer in Rural India. N Engl J Med 2009; 360:1385-1394April 2, 2009DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa0808516) available from https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa0808516?url_ver=Z39.88- 2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3dwww.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, accessed on 12.12.2017
- Sankaranarayanan Rengaswamy, Budukh Atul Madhukar, Rajkumar Rajamanickam. Effective screening programmes for cervical cancer in low- and middle-income developing countries. Bull World Health Organ [Internet]. 2001 Jan; 79(10): 954-962. Available from: http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0042-96862001001000009&lng=en. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0042-96862001001000009.) [cited 2016 Dec 07]
- Poonam R Naik, K. Nagaraj, Abhay Subhashrao Nirgude, Awareness of cervical cancer and effectiveness of educational intervention programme among nursing students in a rural area of Andhra Pradesh. ISSN 2229-337X Volume 3 Issue 2 July- December 2012; 41-45, available from http://www.iapsmgc.org/issues_pdf/6.pdf, cited on 23.6.2016
- Anantharaman VV, Sudharshini S, Chitra A. A cross-sectional study on knowledge, attitude, and practice on cervical cancer and screening among female health care providers of Chennai corporation, 2013. J Acad Med Sci 2012;2:124-8. Available from http://www.e-jams.org/printarticle.asp?issn=2249-4855;year=2012;volume=2;issue=4;spage=124;epage=128;aulast=Anantharaman, cited on 11.11.2016
- McCarey et al. Awareness of HPV and cervical cancer prevention among Cameroonian healthcare workers. BMC Women’s Health 2011 11:4 available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3219551/pdf/1472-6874-11-45.pdf, cited 15.11.2016
- Ekta Singh, Shikha Seth, Vidya Rani, Dhiraj Kumar Srivastava. Awareness of cervical cancer screening among nursing staff in a tertiary institution of rural India. J Gynecol Oncol Vol. 23, No. 3:141-146 , available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229162400_Awareness_of_cervical_cancer_screening_among_nursing_staff_in_a_tertiary_institution_of_rural_India, cited on 12.12.2016
- Amol Gaikwad, Kirshan Rakh. Cervical cancer & screening: A KAP study among Health Care Staff in Private Health Facilities in Maharashtra . International Journal of Scientific Research. Vol.4 issue 9 page 245-246
- Gupta M, Yadav M, Agarwal N, Arora R. Awareness of cervical cancer screening among paramedical staff and students in an Institution of Northern India. Natl J Community Med 2013; 4(2):333-336. Available from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95c9/00eee33a7084753b64cf87ed4f5b50430192.pdf.accessed on 23.1.2017
- Pandey D, Vanya V, Bhagat S, VS B, Shetty J (2012) Awareness and Attitude towards Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine among Medical Students in a Premier Medical School in India. PLoS ONE 7(7): e40619. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040619 available from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040619 accessed on 22.1.2017
- Awodele , A. A. A. Adeyomoye, D. F. Awodele , V. Kwashi , I. O. Awodele , D. C. Dolapo. A Study on Cervical Cancer Screening Amongst Nurses in Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria. J Canc Educ (2011) 26:497–504 DOI 10.1007/s13187-010-0187-6. available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3161190/ accessed on 1.2.2017
- Oyedunni Sola Arulogun, Opemipo Olubunmi Maxwell . Perception and utilization of cervical cancer screening services among female nurses in University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. Pan African Medical Journal. Page 1-8. Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3361207/ accessed on 11.2.2017
- Chamaraja Thippeveeranna, Surekha Sadhana Mohan, Laiphrakpam Ranjit Singh, Naorem Nabakishore Singh. Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of the Pap Smear as a Screening Procedure Among Nurses in a Tertiary Hospital in North Eastern India Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2013; 14:845-852 DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.7314/APJCP.2013.14.2.849). Available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236456549_Knowledge_Attitude_and_Practice_of_the_Pap_Smear_as_a_Screening_Procedure_Among_Nurses_in_a_Tertiary_Hospital_in_North_Eastern_India, accessed on 14.2.2017.
- Zechariah Jebakumar A. et al./ A. Zechariah Jebakumar, Hassan S. Nondo, Samuel K. Sarfo. Nurses Role in Cervical Cancer Prevention and its Treatment - a Critical Review. Asian Pacific Journal of Nursing. 2014;1(1):1-5. Available from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/06e6/a1329169404fae3ae4efa9f5bc204c27c903.pdf, accessed on 15.2.2017
- Urasa M, Darj E. Knowledge of cervical cancer and screening practices of nurses at a regional hospital in Tanzania. African Health Sciences 2011; 11(1): 48 – 57 available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092321/ accessed on 1.3.2017
- Gul Awareness of Cervical Cancer Risk Factors and Screening Behaviour among Nurses in a Rural Region of Turkey. Asian Pacific J Cancer Prev, 10, 735-738. Available from http://journal.waocp.org/?sid=Entrez:PubMed&id=pmid:20104960&key=2009.10.5.735 . accessed on 25.2.2017
- Ali SF, Ayub S, Manzoor NF, Azim S, Afif M, et al. (2010) Knowledge and Awareness about Cervical Cancer and Its Prevention amongst Interns and Nursing Staff in Tertiary Care Hospitals in Karachi, Pakistan. PLoS ONE 5(6): e11059. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011059) Available from http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0011059. accessed on 17.2.2017
- Shashank Shekhar, Chanderdeep Sharma, Sita Thakur, Nidhi Raina. Cervical Cancer Screening: Knowledge, Attitude and Practices among Nursing Staff in a Tertiary Level Teaching Institution of Rural India. Asian Pacific J Cancer Prev, 14 (6), 3641-3645)Available from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252323475_Cervical_Cancer_Screening_Knowledge_Attitude_and_Practices_among_Nursing_Staff_in_a_Tertiary_Level_Teaching_Institution_of_Rural_India accessed on 12.12.2017
- Devi SS, Babu VA, Kumari DA. Nursing staff awareness of cervical cancer and pap smear screening in a remote medical college hospital in South India. Int J Res Health Sci [Internet]. 2014 Oct 31;2(4):1085-90. Available from http://www.ijrhs.com/issues.php?val=Volume2&iss=Issue4) accessed on 3.2017.
- Twaha Mutyba,Francis A Mimiro,E. Weiderpass. Knowledge, Attitude and Practices on Cervical Cancer Screening among the Medical Workers of Mulago Hospital, Uganda. BMC Medical Education 2006, 6:13 . Available from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1413529/ , accessed on 4.2017.
Corresponding Author
Dr Pallavi Anil Uplap
Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Grant Government Medical College, Mumbai
Phone Number:+91-9757017082, Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v6i8.90
