An assessment of women’s awareness and knowledge about cervical cancer and screening and the barriers to cervical screening in Ogun State, Nigeria.

Abstract

This is an insight into women's understanding of cervical cancer risk factors, symptomatology, prevention and screening. Quantitative Data was collected using questionnaires administered to 2000 women (aged 20 to 64 years) who were selected by multi-stage sampling technique across the 20 local government areas in Ogun State, Nigeria. The study showed thatthe awareness of cervical cancer and screening was very low (6.5% and 4.8% respectively). The knowledge about cervical and screening was very poor. Only 2.3% of the women could identify a virus as the cause of cervical cancer while 4.1% identified cervical screening as a way to prevent cervical cancer. 97.7% and 97.9% had no or poor knowledge of risk factors and knowledge of symptoms of cervical cancer. 90.5% identified lack of awareness as the barrier to uptake of cervical screening. 1.4% of the women have had cervical screening done.In order to step up the campaign for the control of cervical cancer in Nigeria, it is therefore very important to concentrate much of the effort on creation of awareness and enhancing the knowledge of women about cervical cancer and screening.