Demographic Characteristics, Knowledge, and Accessibility of Cervical Cancer Screening Services in Women Living on the Outskirts of Bandar Abbas City, Southern Iran

The prevalence of cervical cancer in Iran is increasing. The cervical cancer screening can accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer in women with no HPV vaccination. The current study aims to investigate demographic characteristics, knowledge and accessibility of cervical cancer screening  services in women from the outskirts of Bandar Abbas City, southern Iran. 

This is a case-control study on 200 women performed cervical cancer screening regularly in the past 3 years (case group) and 400 women with no cervical cancer screening in the past 3 years (control group). Information was collected using a researcher-made questionnaire surveying demographic/obstetric information, knowledge of cervical cancer and cervical cancer screening, and access to cervical cancer screening services. Analysis was done by using univariate and multivariate regression analyses in STATA software, version 14.2. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

The mean age of women was 30.33±4.892 years in the case group and 31.35±6.149 years in the control group. There was a significant difference in the means of knowledge and access between the two groups.  Married women were 3 times more likely to perform cervical cancer screening than single women. Women with a diploma were 2 times and those with a university degree were 1.4 times more likely to perform cervical cancer screening than women with primary education. Both moderate and high economic status increased the odds of screening by 6 times. Non-smoking women were 1.1 times more likely to perform screening than smokers. Compared to women with low knowledge, women with moderate and high knowledge were 18 times and 13 times more likely to perform cervical cancer screening, respectively. In the group with moderate and high access to screening services, women were 4 and 8 times more likely to perform screening, respectively.

It is recommended to remove barriers to cervical cancer screening in women with poor socio-economic status and focus on primiparous women or women without a history of childbirth to increase cervical cancer screening.