Uptake of Cervical Cancer Screening among Female Health Professionals at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital

Abstract

Background: An estimated 570,000 cases of cervical cancer were recorded in 2018 representing 6.6% of all female cancers, making it the fourth most frequent cancer in women. Approximately, about 90% of deaths is due to cervical cancer in low-and middle-income countries. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the uptake of cervical cancer screening services among female health professionals at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional analytical study design was used to gather data from 223 female health professionals (doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and all allied health professionals) who had worked for more than a month at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital. Selection was done by means of simple random sampling method. A structured questionnaire (capturing uptake of cervical cancer screening, predisposing and enabling factors, among others) validated in previous studies was adapted and administered to these female health professionals using the self-administered strategy. The level of knowledge of the signs and symptoms and risk factors were assessed by scoring participants’ answers into low, adequate and high. Uptake of cervical cancer screening services was determined by participants answering ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and level of awareness of cervical cancer screening was determined by categorizing Likert scale scores into low, adequate and high. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse and describe the basic features of the data. Chi square test was applied to establish relationships between the dependent and independent variables. The strength of the relationships was established by applying the logistic regression. The significance of the association was accepted at p<0.05 at 95% confidence interval. Results: The uptake of cervical cancer screening amongst health professionals was 34%. The study found that 40% of the female health professionals had inadequate knowledge of signs and symptoms of cervical cancer. While 45% of the female health professionals/workers had adequate knowledge of the signs of cervical cancer, 15% had high knowledge of the signs of cervical cancer. The findings also revealed that 86.7% of the respondents knew that HPV could cause cervical cancer. The awareness of female health professionals of cervical cancer screening was 92%. Lack of designated rooms for screening was found to decrease the uptake of cervical cancer screening by 81.0% (AOR=0.19; p-value= 0.02). Conclusion: The study concludes that low uptake of cervical cancer screening may have dire consequences for women in general because this means cervical cancer, could be detected late, leading to an increase in morbidity and mortality amongst females. Therefore, health policy makers and stakeholders should initiate efforts to enhance awareness and education among female health professionals in particular and women in general.