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Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya

BACKGROUND: Despite a high prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer in low and middle-income countries, stigma remains an issue. Addressing HPV and cervical cancer stigma could significantly improve health outcomes for these conditions. The objective of this study was to identify...

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Autores principales: Ginjupalli, Ramya, Mundaden, Rachel, Choi, Yujung, Herfel, Emily, Oketch, Sandra Yvonne, Watt, Melissa H., Makhulo, Breandan, Bukusi, Elizabeth Anne, Huchko, Megan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8832662/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35148778
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-022-01619-y
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author Ginjupalli, Ramya
Mundaden, Rachel
Choi, Yujung
Herfel, Emily
Oketch, Sandra Yvonne
Watt, Melissa H.
Makhulo, Breandan
Bukusi, Elizabeth Anne
Huchko, Megan
author_facet Ginjupalli, Ramya
Mundaden, Rachel
Choi, Yujung
Herfel, Emily
Oketch, Sandra Yvonne
Watt, Melissa H.
Makhulo, Breandan
Bukusi, Elizabeth Anne
Huchko, Megan
author_sort Ginjupalli, Ramya
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Despite a high prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer in low and middle-income countries, stigma remains an issue. Addressing HPV and cervical cancer stigma could significantly improve health outcomes for these conditions. The objective of this study was to identify the manifestations of stigma and their potential impacts on health-seeking behavior. METHODS: Twenty-six in-depth interviews were conducted with women living with HIV, HIV-negative women, community health volunteers, and health care providers in Kisumu, Kenya in 2019. The interviews were designed to draw out existing attitudes or experiences related to stigma within the community. We conducted a thematic analysis of the interviews to identify internalized, anticipated, and discriminatory attitudes. RESULTS: Within internalized attitudes, a prominent observed theme was a fear of death associated with a positive HPV test. This stemmed from a lack of understanding of differences between HPV and cervical cancer and posed a significant barrier for women deciding to seek screening or to continue with treatment. Discriminatory attitudes of community members, including assumptions of promiscuity, infidelity, or HIV status, were perceived to prevent women from accessing screening and treatment opportunities. The interviews also exhibited a limited awareness of HPV in this region, which may have contributed to a lack of enacted stigma towards people living with HPV or cervical cancer. CONCLUSION: Stigma has the potential to lead to decreased screening and treatment uptake through its drivers. This includes a decreased perception of personal risk due to a lack of knowledge, which results in increased HPV-risk behaviors. Future research must focus on creating and integrating stigma-reducing interventions, primarily to encourage women to seek out primary and secondary preventative measures. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12905-022-01619-y.
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spelling pubmed-88326622022-02-11 Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya Ginjupalli, Ramya Mundaden, Rachel Choi, Yujung Herfel, Emily Oketch, Sandra Yvonne Watt, Melissa H. Makhulo, Breandan Bukusi, Elizabeth Anne Huchko, Megan BMC Womens Health Original Research BACKGROUND: Despite a high prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer in low and middle-income countries, stigma remains an issue. Addressing HPV and cervical cancer stigma could significantly improve health outcomes for these conditions. The objective of this study was to identify the manifestations of stigma and their potential impacts on health-seeking behavior. METHODS: Twenty-six in-depth interviews were conducted with women living with HIV, HIV-negative women, community health volunteers, and health care providers in Kisumu, Kenya in 2019. The interviews were designed to draw out existing attitudes or experiences related to stigma within the community. We conducted a thematic analysis of the interviews to identify internalized, anticipated, and discriminatory attitudes. RESULTS: Within internalized attitudes, a prominent observed theme was a fear of death associated with a positive HPV test. This stemmed from a lack of understanding of differences between HPV and cervical cancer and posed a significant barrier for women deciding to seek screening or to continue with treatment. Discriminatory attitudes of community members, including assumptions of promiscuity, infidelity, or HIV status, were perceived to prevent women from accessing screening and treatment opportunities. The interviews also exhibited a limited awareness of HPV in this region, which may have contributed to a lack of enacted stigma towards people living with HPV or cervical cancer. CONCLUSION: Stigma has the potential to lead to decreased screening and treatment uptake through its drivers. This includes a decreased perception of personal risk due to a lack of knowledge, which results in increased HPV-risk behaviors. Future research must focus on creating and integrating stigma-reducing interventions, primarily to encourage women to seek out primary and secondary preventative measures. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12905-022-01619-y. BioMed Central 2022-02-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8832662/ /pubmed/35148778 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-022-01619-y Text en © The Author(s) 2022 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 Original Research
Ginjupalli, Ramya
Mundaden, Rachel
Choi, Yujung
Herfel, Emily
Oketch, Sandra Yvonne
Watt, Melissa H.
Makhulo, Breandan
Bukusi, Elizabeth Anne
Huchko, Megan
Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya
title Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya
title_full Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya
title_fullStr Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya
title_full_unstemmed Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya
title_short Developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and HPV in western Kenya
title_sort developing a framework to describe stigma related to cervical cancer and hpv in western kenya
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8832662/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35148778
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-022-01619-y
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