ASSESSMENT OF KNOWLEDGE, AWARENESS AND ATTITUDE ABOUT CERVICAL CANCER AND ITS SCREENING AMONG WOMEN IN MAKKAH – SAUDI ARABIA

Background: Cervical cancer is considered the 4th most common cancer of women worldwide. It is the 10th most common cancer in Saudi women. Due to lack of well-organized screening program in KSA most cases of cervical cancer presented to health care services in late stage of disease. Aim: to assess the level of knowledge, awareness and attitude about cervical cancer and if the women had undergone screening for cervical cancer or not. Subjects and Methods: a questionnaire based cross-sectional study was conducted among the women attending the outpatient clinics in 3 health care facilities chosen randomly from all health care facilities in Makah. A sample size of 210 was calculated. Data was analyzed using SPSS Version 23 Results: majority of the women have poor knowledge about cervical cancer (86.2% [181/210]) taking their knowledge mainly from the internet not from doctors. Only (13.8% [29/210]) are aware about screening. Only 21.4% women had undergone screening while 79.9% have favorable attitude towards screening. Although 90% have positive attitude towards vaccination only1.9 % took the vaccine. Conclusions: Although majority of women had poor knowledge, majority have positive attitude towards screening and vaccination. Mass media and health care teams should be used to educate women. Keywords: Cervical Cancer, Screening, Knowledge, Awareness, HPV vaccine