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Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective
BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems have adopted different strategies to reduce the burden of cervical cancer. In Poland, a population-based screening program was implemented in 2006, leading to a downward trend in cervical cancer burden. However, screening rates are still low in relation to other EU mem...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8717668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34969373 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01612-8 |
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author | Nessler, Katarzyna Ball, Francis Chan, Sze Kay Florence Chwalek, Michal Krztoń-Królewiecka, Anna Windak, Adam |
author_facet | Nessler, Katarzyna Ball, Francis Chan, Sze Kay Florence Chwalek, Michal Krztoń-Królewiecka, Anna Windak, Adam |
author_sort | Nessler, Katarzyna |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems have adopted different strategies to reduce the burden of cervical cancer. In Poland, a population-based screening program was implemented in 2006, leading to a downward trend in cervical cancer burden. However, screening rates are still low in relation to other EU member states. In Poland, Pap smears are mainly performed by gynecologists rather than Primary Health Care (PHC) physicians. Little is known about the experiences and attitudes of the latter regarding cervical cancer screening in a PHC setting. METHODS: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was carried out among 43 PHC physicians from the Malopolska region in Poland. Barriers and attitudes towards cytology in a PHC setting were evaluated. RESULTS: Approximately 35% of surveyed physicians reported having experience in performing cytology. Almost 75% of PHC physicians lacked the necessary equipment in their office to perform the screening. None of the studied physicians performed Pap smears in their office at the time. The reasons included: shortage of competence (78.57%) and time (69.05%), the perception of Pap smears as a task for gynecologists (69.05%), the lack of financial incentives (61.90%), and the belief that their patients would be unwilling to undergo the test in their PHC physician’s office (33.33%). More than three quarters (76.74%) declared they would be ready to perform Pap smears if the tests were additionally paid. No significant associations between PHC physicians’ characteristics and their willingness to perform cytology screening were found. CONCLUSION: The primary barrier to perform Pap smears by PHC physicians does not lie in their personal reluctance but in the organization of the healthcare system. Provision of required training and proper funding allocation can likely improve the screening rate of cervical cancer in Poland. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8717668 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-87176682022-01-05 Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective Nessler, Katarzyna Ball, Francis Chan, Sze Kay Florence Chwalek, Michal Krztoń-Królewiecka, Anna Windak, Adam BMC Fam Pract Research BACKGROUND: Healthcare systems have adopted different strategies to reduce the burden of cervical cancer. In Poland, a population-based screening program was implemented in 2006, leading to a downward trend in cervical cancer burden. However, screening rates are still low in relation to other EU member states. In Poland, Pap smears are mainly performed by gynecologists rather than Primary Health Care (PHC) physicians. Little is known about the experiences and attitudes of the latter regarding cervical cancer screening in a PHC setting. METHODS: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey was carried out among 43 PHC physicians from the Malopolska region in Poland. Barriers and attitudes towards cytology in a PHC setting were evaluated. RESULTS: Approximately 35% of surveyed physicians reported having experience in performing cytology. Almost 75% of PHC physicians lacked the necessary equipment in their office to perform the screening. None of the studied physicians performed Pap smears in their office at the time. The reasons included: shortage of competence (78.57%) and time (69.05%), the perception of Pap smears as a task for gynecologists (69.05%), the lack of financial incentives (61.90%), and the belief that their patients would be unwilling to undergo the test in their PHC physician’s office (33.33%). More than three quarters (76.74%) declared they would be ready to perform Pap smears if the tests were additionally paid. No significant associations between PHC physicians’ characteristics and their willingness to perform cytology screening were found. CONCLUSION: The primary barrier to perform Pap smears by PHC physicians does not lie in their personal reluctance but in the organization of the healthcare system. Provision of required training and proper funding allocation can likely improve the screening rate of cervical cancer in Poland. BioMed Central 2021-12-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8717668/ /pubmed/34969373 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01612-8 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Nessler, Katarzyna Ball, Francis Chan, Sze Kay Florence Chwalek, Michal Krztoń-Królewiecka, Anna Windak, Adam Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective |
title | Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective |
title_full | Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective |
title_fullStr | Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective |
title_full_unstemmed | Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective |
title_short | Barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in Poland - doctors’ perspective |
title_sort | barriers and attitudes towards cervical cancer screening in primary healthcare in poland - doctors’ perspective |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8717668/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34969373 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01612-8 |
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