Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice about Pap Smear among Women Reffering to A Public Hospital

<p align="left">Objective: The Pap smear is a reliable, inexpensive and effective screening test for cervical cancer; the</p><p align="left">second most common cancer among women worldwide. We aimed to determine women’s knowledge,</p><p align="left">attitudes and practice towards Pap smear and barriers for the screening in a public hospital.</p><p align="left">Materials and methods: This study, was carried out on 350 outpatient married women reffering for a</p><p align="left">visit at the clinics of the Alzahra educational hospital, Rasht- Iran, 2011. A questionnaire including</p><p align="left">demographic characteristics (24 questions), knowledge (14 questions), attitudes (11 statments) and</p><p align="left">practice (10 questions) towards Pap smear was completed by interview with the women. The data were</p><p align="left">analyzed using SPSS ver.13.</p><p align="left">Results: Mean age of participants was 32 (SD 12) years. Of the respondents, only 44.3% were aware of</p><p align="left">the Pap smear and 27.1% had had it at least once in their life. The most common reason for having the</p><p align="left">test was physicians’ or other health workers’ advise and for not having the test was no recommendation</p><p align="left">by health providers and lack of knowledge about Pap smear. Embarrassing, fear of the test result or</p><p align="left">economic problems mentioned by only 12 (4.2%) as the main barrier. Mean (±SD) knowledge score of</p><p align="left">the women who had heard about the Pap smear was 59.4 (24.3) and attitudes score of all participants</p><p align="left">was 48.5 (11.6) from possible range score of 0-100. Women with a history of Pap smear had had higher</p><p align="left">awareness and attitudes score.</p><p align="left">Conclusion: The knowledge and practice of the women was inadequate and need to be promoted.</p><p align="left">Considering the main reason mentioned by the participants for not having the test, all health providers</p><p>should educate and encourage women to do regular Pap smear.