Knowledge and Attitude of Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Clinic at University College Hospital towards Causes and Methods of Prevention of Cervical Cancer

Abstract

Nigerian women of childbearing age who are sexually active are the at risk of cervical cancer (CC), since they may have been exposed to Human Papilloma virus. Majority of the women with invasive cervical cancer were never screened for this disease which is known to be a major cause of cancer deaths among women, especially in developing nations. Mortality and morbidity arising from non-communicable diseases like cancer have continued to pose threat to the life of women. Cervical cancer is one of the common cancers and is responsible for the death of many women. This study was therefore designed to investigate the knowledge of pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at University Teaching Hospital Ibadan about cervical cancer and their attitude towards its methods of prevention. A descriptive cross-sectional design was adopted and a total of one hundred and forty-seven (147) pregnant women were selected at the antenatal clinic at University Teaching Hospital Ibadan using a simple random sampling method. Self-structured questionnaire was used to collected the date from the respondents while descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data. Respondents’ ages ranged between 18 and 50 which is the average reproductive age of women, of which 80% had at least secondary school education while the remaining 20% had only primary school education. The study confirmed that most of the respondents had heard about cervical cancer screening and know where it can be done. While the awareness of cervical; cancer is high unfortunately, the perception that it can be treated is quite low. Knowledge, attitude and perception of women attending ante-natal clinic on cervical cancer screening often an important opportunity for comprehensive prevention and preventive strategies of the disease especially during the early stage if detected on time. Noteworthy is that majority of the respondents are aware of cervical cancer, however they are not aware of the vaccines that can help prevent it. Their knowledge of the relationship of cervical cancer is not accurate. Also, they don’t know that women should be checked every three years by health professionals for cervical cancer. Similarly, they do not have enough information about the different types of test that should be carried out for the detection of cervical cancer. Hence, there is a large gap between level of knowledge and attitude of pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at University Teaching Hospital Ibadan towards causes and methods of preventing cervical cancer. Efforts should be put in place to bridge this gap to reduce the incidence of women with cervical cancer.