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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian J Med Paediatr Oncol 2019; 40(02): 193-200
DOI: 10.4103/ijmpo.ijmpo_199_17
Original Article

The Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Regarding Pap Smear, Cervical Cancer, and Human Papillomavirus among Women Attending a Mother and Child Health Clinic in Kuantan, Malaysia

Tg. Faten Nurjihan
Kulliyyah of Science, International Islamic University Malaysia
,
Tg. Abdul Rahman
Kulliyyah of Science, International Islamic University Malaysia
,
Nor Azlina A. Rahman
Departments of Physical Rehabilitation Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan, Pahang
,
Mohd Affendi Mohd Shafri
Departments of Biomedical Science, Kulliyyah of Allied Health Sciences, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan, Pahang
,
Mainul Haque
Faculty of Medicine and Defence Health, Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia (National Defence University of Malaysia), Kem Perdana Sungai Besi, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
› Author Affiliations Financial support and sponsorship Nil.
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Abstract

Background: Cervical cancer (CC) is a foremost reason of global cancer death in women, and a good portion remains with the developing countries. This study was conducted to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding Pap smear, CC, and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) among the women attending a Mother and Child Health Clinic in Kuantan, Malaysia. Materials and Methods: A total of 120 respondents involved in this cross-sectional study. The convenience sampling was to select the respondents. The data were collected from in 2013. Results: The mean age 32.19 years. Up to 54.2% of respondents never had Pap smear in the past 5 years, while over 67.5% of respondents never had HPV vaccination. There was a significant correlation between knowledge with attitude (P < 0.001) and attitude with practice (P < 0.001) regarding Pap smear, CC, and HPV. However, knowledge and practice regarding Pap smear, CC, and HPV was not significantly correlated (P = 0.525). There was no significant correlation between mean age and knowledge (P = 0.455) while there was a significant correlation between mean age with attitude (P = 0.011) and practice (P < 0.001) regarding Pap smear, CC, and HPV. It was also shown that there were differences between races in term of knowledge and attitude (P < 0.05). However, there was no significant difference in term of practice regarding Pap smear, CC, and HPV (P > 0.05) between races. Conclusions: Important barriers to Pap smear screening among women are highlighted through this study. The health institution involved needs to come up with better strategies to deal with these barriers to improve the awareness of women regarding Pap smear, CC, and HPV.

Keywords

Attitude - cervical cancer - human papillomavirus - knowledge - Malaysia - Pap smear - practice


Publication History

Article published online:
03 June 2021

© 2019. Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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