Determinants of cervical cancer screening adherence among rural women of Chengalpattu district

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women in India even though it is a vaccine preventable disease. Women ever undergone a screening for cervical cancer in India is only 1.7% in rural (NFHS-5). The focus of this study was to identify the factors affecting cervical cancer screening among rural women of Chengalpattu district. Methods: It is a community based cross sectional study conducted in 12 villages coming under field practicing areas of rural health training centre of Chettinad Hospital and Research Institute in Chengalpattu district. Sampling was done by using Simple random sampling method and our sample size was 220. A pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. The collected data was entered in Microsoft Office Excel and analysis was done using SPSS software version 21. Results: The Mean (SD) age of the study participants was 45±10.17 years. Among all the participants, 181 (82.3%) were unaware about any method of cervical cancer screening. Factors that are barriers to cervical cancer screening includes feeling of being healthy (79.6%), fear of finding out cancer (71.9%), anticipation of pain (68.1%). Conclusions: Present study found out that most study participants were unaware about the methods of cervical cancer screening. It is important to educate women about cervical cancer screening methods to overcome barriers.