Knowledge, Attitude and Practices towards cervical cancer screening among female medical students at the Copperbelt University School of Medicine, Zambia

Abstract

Introduction: In Zambia, cervical cancer is the most frequent cancer among women aged between 15 and 44 years and as a result, free cervical cancer screening has been rolled out to many health facilities countrywide in order to minimize cervical cancer morbidity and mortality. However, despite all these efforts, no study has been conducted to determine the knowledge, attitude and practices towards cervical cancer screening among medical students at the
public universities in Zambia. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among female medical students in clinical years at the Copperbelt University, school of medicine between May and July, 2017. Simple random sampling method was used to select a total of 72 participants. Data was collected through standardized pre tested tools. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Tropical Disease Research Centre, Ndola Zambia. Data was analyzed
using STATA 13.0 statistical software. Univariate analysis was performed. Results: A total of 72 female students were enrolled into the study. Most (79.2%) of the participants were below 30 years of age. All the participants were knowledgeable while 86.1% had positive attitude towards cervical cancer screening. However, only 22 (30.6%) participants had gone for cervical cancer screening. Conclusion and recommendations: Our study has demonstrated that despite good knowledge and attitude on cervical cancer and its screening, uptake of free screening remains low among female medical students at the Copperbelt University. We recommend that the Copperbelt University intensifies campaigns on cervical cancer screening program to increase the uptake.