Pap smear follow-up among women who need treatment and repeated Pap smear test

To investigate on the effectiveness of the Pap smear test.

There were 11885 Pap smear test records for women in south Tehran health centers in 1999. The effectiveness was defined as the proportion of women who should have been return for repeated pap smear test following their treatments. We studied the Pap smear records to calculate the effectiveness.

Among those 447 were eligible for repeating Pap smear test only 219 (49.1%) were accessible for interview. Among those who were interviewed, only 74 people had returned to repeat Pap smear. Thus, the effectiveness of cervical cancer screening was found to be 34%. The main reasons for not returning to repeat Pap smear were: lack of knowledge about follow up necessity (59%), lack of time (22%), fear of finding refractory disease (4%).

The findings suggest that the quality of Pap smear test in Tehran is poor and needs to be, improved.