Prevalence and Acceptabilty of Cervical Cancer Screening Amongst Women Attending Recep Tayyiperdogan Hospital in Mogadishu. A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Cancer of the cervix is the fourth commonest cancer in the world among women. Africa has a total population of 268 million women aged 15 years and over who are at risk of having cervical cancer. Out of this population, approximately 80,000 of women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year with over 60,000 dying from the disease. It has been reported that in Somalia, over 967 new cervical cancer cases are diagnosed annually, and it‟s the second leading cause of cancer for women of 15-44 years of age. Objectives: To determine the prevalence and acceptability cervical cancer screening among women attending the Gynaecological Outpatient Clinic (GOPC) in Recep Tayyip (RT) Erdogan Hospital, Mogadishu, Somalia. Methodology: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive study that was conducted to assess the acceptability of cervical cancer screening among women attending GOPC in RT Erdogan Hospital, Mogadishu, Somalia. A Sample size of 384 participants was required for the study. Sampling was done by taking a random sample of all women attending GOPC. Data was coded and analyzed using SPSS version 23. Categorical data was analyzed and presented as frequencies and proportions, while the continuous data was summarized and presented as means and standard deviations, where applicable median and inter quartile range was reported. Results: A total of 423 eligible women participated in the study, whose mean age was 29 (SD=9.8) years, while the median age was 27.0 (IQR=11) years. Majority of the women were from the age group 18 to 25 and 26 to 35 years with 164 (38.8%) each, and 403 (95.3%) women were residents of Mogadishu.The study found that only 20 (5.3%) of them had been screened, and only 76 (18.0%) of all the women having heard of cervical smear test. The study found that only 26 (6.1%) had heard of the vaccine of which only 2 (8.7%) had been given with HPV vaccine. The study found that only 48 (11.1%) had heard it. Only 21 (50.0%) heard it. from a health facility.The study found that the top most barrier for not going for cervical cancer screening were that it was costly being mentioned by 78 (45.1%) of the respondents, and that they were healthy mentioned by 54 (31.2%) respondents, and not knowing where to get screening which was mentioned by 27 (15.6%) of the respondents. Conclusion: There is low prevalence of cervical cancer screening, low awareness about cervical cancer and acceptability of HPV vaccination among women attending GOPC at RT Erdogan hospital.