Awareness and Attitude Regarding Cervical Cancer Screening among Reproductive Age Women.

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is preventable so awareness can be as effective as any other method to prevent it.The study aims to assess awareness and attitude regarding cervical cancer screening among reproductive age women in a tertiary level hospital, Kathmandu, Nepal. METHODS: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out among 170 reproductive age women attending Nepal Medical College Teaching Hospital using purposive sampling technique. A semi structured interview schedule was used to collect data via face to face interview. Data was summarized using frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Multiple logistic regression was used to determine the factors associated with awareness and attitude. RESULTS: Among 170 reproductive age women, mean age was 31.49 ± 8.70 years. Majority 151 (88.8%) of the women had heard of cervical cancer while 119 (70%) of them had heard about cervical cancer screening. Among them, only 17 (11.3%) had adequate awareness regarding cervical cancer screening. Seventy five (46.6%) of the women had positive attitude towards cervical cancer screening. Employment status [95% CI (0.01-0.38), AOR=0.06, p=0.003] was associated with awareness whereas, ethnicity, employment status and marital status were associated with attitude. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the women were unaware about the cervical cancer screening but nearly half of the respondents had positive attitude. Therefore it is very crucial to provide health education and awareness through supervised client education. Focused group discussion as an effective approach of awareness program can be conducted in order to include specific group such as unemployed and unmarried women.

Factors associated with job satisfaction among graduate nursing faculties in Nepal.

BACKGROUND: Job satisfaction among nursing faculty is critical to improving quality of nursing education, producing future nurses who will contribute directly to the health of patients at a local and national level. This study explores factors associated with job satisfaction among graduate nursing faculties in different universities of Nepal. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among nursing faculty with at least one year of teaching in their respective institutions. A 36-items job satisfaction questionnaire with 6-point Likert type responses was administered online. The questionnaire was pre-tested with 30 faculties pooled from multiple institutions. Link to the final survey was sent via e-mail to 327 nursing faculties working in 39 nursing colleges. Respondents were contacted by phone as a follow up to the email to politely remind them about the survey. Data analysis was carried out with SAS University Edition software. Chi-Square test and t-test were used for simple descriptive analysis. A multivariate binary logistic regression model was used to identify the significant factors associated with nursing faculties' job satisfaction. Adjusted odds ratio was calculated and significance was considered at p ≤ 0.05 with 95% confidence interval. RESULTS: The response rate was 54.4%. After retrospective cleaning of data, usable response rate was 52.3% (n = 171). The average age of the nursing faculties was 36.8 ± 7.0 years. Based on the overall job satisfaction score, 36.8% nursing faculties were satisfied with their current job. The coefficient for Cronbach's alpha was 0.895 suggesting very good reliability of the overall measure. The significant factors associated with job satisfaction were the involvement of the faculties in decision making process related to the department (OR = 4.83) and adequate access to reference materials (OR = 2.90). CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that nursing faculties have positive attitude towards their job but are dissatisfied with the benefits offered to them and the operating condition of their institutions. Expanding the teaching learning resources, such as reference books, subscription to journals, and continuing education opportunities for nursing faculties through participation in professional meetings would be helpful in improving the quality of nursing education in Nepal.