Knowledge and Practice of Screening for Breast and Cervical Cancers among Women in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate the knowledge and practice of screening tests for breast and cervical cancers among women in Uyo. Four specific objectives and corresponding research questions and hypotheses were used in the study. A descriptive cross-sectional design was adopted for the study. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 420 women aged 18 to 50 years from a population of 5,860. The data collected were analyzed using the International Business Machines (IBM), Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. 0. Many of the women (66.7%) knew about Breast Self Examination (BSE), few of them (24.5% and 24%) knew Clinical Breast Examination (CBE) and Mammogram respectively and a little over half of them (54.3%) practiced them. A little number of the women (27.3%) knew cervical cancer screening and only 16.7% practiced them. There was a significant association between knowledge of eligible women to be screened and practice of breast cancer screening (x2 17.62; P = 0.00527). There was no significant association between knowledge and practice of breast cancer screening (x2 = 4.93, 10.23, 6.83; P = 0.176995, 0.805028, 0.077625) and cervical cancer screening (x2 = 5.26, 18.71, 6.75; P = 0.153719, 0.22717, 0.080308). There was a significant relationship between women’s age 18 – 28 years and the practice of breast cancer screening (r = 0.59; P = 0.00001) whereas there was no relationship between women’s age 29 -39 years and practice of breast cancer screening (r = – 0.001; 0.99135) and age 40 – 50 years (r = 0.038; P = 0.658129). Findings also showed relationship between age 18 – 28 years and practice of cervical cancer screening (r = 0.197; P = 0.011983) whereas there was no significant relationship between other age groups and practice of cervical cancer screening with P > 0.05. Adequate health education through women friendly organizations and screening for all women during regular physician office visit for other health issues are recommended.