Introduction: Cervical cancer is the most frequent cause of death due to cancer among women of reproductive age, although, it can be prevented if the women uptake regular high quality cytological screening programs. In spite of recommendations for effective screening practices, cervical cancer screening rates in developing countries remain low. The study’s aim was to examine the knowledge, attitude, and practice of cervical cancer screening among women of reproductive age (20 - 49years) in a secondary health centre, Nigeria. Methods: A descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. Non-probability convenience sampling technique was employed to select 180 reproductive aged women. A self-structured pretested questionnaire was used to collect data and was analysed using SPSS Software, version 22. Frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation was used for descriptive statistics and Spearman correlationcoefficient for inferential statistics Results: The study showed that 67.3% had poor knowledge and 7.3% had moderate knowledge of Cervical cancer screening. Few women (36.7%) had positive attitude while majority (63.3%) had a negative attitude. Only 21.5% of the women had good practice of cervical cancer screening. Some factors that influenced practice include: male spouse disapproval, pain, fear, cost of screening, distance and concern of being screened by male provider. There was a significant relationship (p <0.001) between level of knowledge and attitude, as well as knowledge level and practice (p <0.001). Conclusion: About two-third of the women have poor knowledge of cervical cancer screening. At the same time, there is an unfavourable attitude and an alarming poor utilization of cervical cancer screening services among women of reproductive age. Thus, addressing the factors that influences uptake of cervical cancer screening services is vital to ensuring compliance.
Madu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.