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Comparative assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice of cervical cancer and its screening among clinical students in southern Nigeria


Rebecca Ugochi lbekwe

Abstract

Background: Cancer of the cervix is one of the most common and preventable forms of cancer among women; yet it kills many women in developing countries of Africa and Asia. This study was carried out to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding cervical cancer and its screening among female clinical nursing students in Southern Nigeria.

Methodology: Comparative cross-sectional study was undertaken over a period of 7months (April to November 2013). There were 100 female clinical nursing students in Delta State University Teaching Hospital (DELSUTH) and all were selected for the study. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 100 female clinical nursing students in University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) as controls. An interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect data and analysis was by SPSS version 17.0.

Result: The mean age of respondents in DELSUTH was 24.2±2.6 years, compared to 23.2±2.9 years for UBTH. 66% of respondents in DELSUTH compared to 59% in UBTH had at least good knowledge of cervical cancer and its screening. 86% in DELSUTH compared to 79% in UBTH had positive attitude, while 9% of respondents in DELSUTH compared to  7% in UBTH had done cervical cancer screening.

Conclusion: The level of knowledge on cervical cancer and its screening was high, the attitude was good, but the uptake of the screening service was very poor. There is need to adopt urgent and drastic intervention strategies to save our women from unnecessary death.

Keywords: Comparative Assessment; Cervical cancer; Southern Nigeria


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eISSN: 2992-345X
print ISSN: 0189-9287