A study on awareness of cervical cancer among women of reproductive age group in urban slums of old Hubli, Karnataka, India

Background: Cervical Cancer tops the list of cancers among women worldwide with an estimated new case of 530,000 and a mortality of 275,000 deaths annually with an overall mortality ratio of 52%. This can be largely prevented by early detection and timely screening tests. Awareness and education regarding this, is the key to curtail the rise of such cancers in the community. Objectives of the studies were to assess knowledge, attitude regarding cervical cancer among women of reproductive age group and to correlate with various socio-demographic & marital factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study among 200 women of reproductive age group, chosen conveniently for a period of two months from April to June 2014 at urban slums of Old Hubli was undertaken by a pretested and semi-structured questionnaire. Data collected by a house to house survey, entered in Ms Excel, analysed by SPSS v.20 and presented as Percentages and Proportion. Chi-square was applied for finding out the associations and those with p-value <0.05 were taken as statistically significant.Results: Out of the 200 female respondents belonged majorly to the 25-34 years age group at 43%. About 57% were Muslims. 30% of the women were illiterate and 19% of them had up to high school level of education. Around 65.5% of the respondents were housewives by occupation. Majority of them belonged to the lower socio-economic strata with 54% falling under Stage 4 of Modified B. G. Prasad classification The Chi-square for awareness of cervical cancer is, X2 = 0.0858, where p>0.05, which is not significant. The Chi-square for awareness about Pap smear is, X2= 0.2442, where p>0.05, which is not significant.Conclusions: The study showed that awareness about cervical cancer was poor among women and also its screening tests, H.P.V vaccinations were never heard of in the community.