Acceptance of Cervical Cancer Screening and its Correlates Among Women of a Peri-Urban High-Density Residential Area in Ndola, Zambia

BACKGROUND: Zambia has one of the highest cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates in the world. Cervical cancer screening leads to reduction in the incidence of invasive disease. The objectives of the study were to determine the level of acceptance of cervical cancer screening and its correlates among women of a peri-urban high-density residential area in Ndola, Zambia. METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted. With a population size of 12,000 women in reproductive age and using an expected frequency of 50 + 5% and at 95% confidence interval, the required sample size was 372. A stratified sampling method was used to select participants. Independent factors that were associated with the outcome were established using multi-variate logistic regression. Adjusted odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals are reported. RESULTS: In total, 355 out of 372 questionnaires were administered, achieving a response rate of 95.4%. Out of 355 participants, 9 (2.5%) had ever been screened for cervical cancer. In bivariate analyses, factors associated with screened were knowledge of body part affected, screening as a prevention tool, whether cervical cancer was curable in its early stages or not, awareness of cervical cancer screening, knowledge on frequency of screening and cervical cancer screening causing harm. However, in multivariate analysis, participants who knew that cervical cancer screening prevented cervical cancer were 3.58 (95% CI [1.49, 8.64]) times more likely to have been screened than those who did not have the knowledge. Participants who knew that cervical cancer is curable were 2.76 (95% CI [1.92, 8.31]) times more likely to have been screened than those who did not have the knowledge. CONCLUSION AND GLOBAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS: The uptake of screening was low. Interventions should be designed to increase uptake of screening for cervical cancer by considering factors that have been identified in the current study that are independently associated with cervical cancer screening among this population.