The relationship between women’s awareness of gynecologic cancers and their attitudes toward cancer screening in Türkiye: a path analysis

Gynecologic cancers are among the significant malignant diseases affecting the female reproductive system. This study was conducted to examine the relationship between women’s awareness of gynecologic cancers and their attitudes toward cancer screening. The study was carried out using path analysis within a descriptive and cross-sectional design. The study population comprised married women aged 30–64 years. An a priori sample size calculation using G*Power indicated that a minimum of 172 participants was required. The final sample consisted of 382 women who met the inclusion criteria, agreed to participate, and were included in the analysis Data were collected using the Demographic Information Form, the Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Scale (GCAS), and the Cancer Screening Attitude Scale (CSA). SPSS 25.0 software was used for data analysis, whilst SmartPLS v.4.1.1.8 was used for structural equation modelling. The mean GCAS and CSA scores were 143.69 ± 32.31 and 83.32 ± 15.39, respectively. Bootstrapping showed that gynecologic cancer awareness was positively and statistically significantly associated with attitudes toward cancer screening (β = 0.390, SE = 0.038, t = 10.283, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.315, 0.464]), supporting H1. Among the exploratory paths, educational status was positively associated with screening attitudes (β = 0.164, SE = 0.048, t = 3.412, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.068, 0.258]), whereas the remaining exploratory paths were not statistically significant. The model explained 19.5% of the variance in cancer screening attitudes (R² = 0.195), while the explained variance in gynecologic cancer awareness was negligible (R² = 0.001). Higher gynecologic cancer awareness was significantly associated with more positive attitudes toward cancer screening. Educational status was also positively associated with screening attitudes, whereas the remaining exploratory structural paths were not statistically significant. However, the structural model explained a relatively limited proportion of the variance in screening attitudes, indicating that other individual, psychosocial, and healthcare-related factors may also contribute to women’s attitudes toward cancer screening.