Determinants of cervical cancer screening utilization among women in Southern Ethiopia

Cervical cancer has been an important public health problem. Despite the availability of screening services, its utilization in Ethiopia is low. This study therefore, aimed to identify contextual predictors of cervical cancer screening utilization among eligible women. This study employed facility-based unmatched case–control study design. Data were collected from 410 participants using interviewer-administered techniques. The collected data were entered using EpiInfo version 7 and transported to SPSS version 20 for statistical analysis. We performed descriptive analysis and logistic regression to identify predictors of screening utilization. This study demonstrated that urban residence, being in marital union, membership in women development army, knowledge of cervical cancer screening location, use of maternal health care in the previous year and knowledge on cervical cancer and its screening were predictors of screening utilization. Therefore, it is important to improve women’s knowledge on cervical cancer, promote maternal health care use, disseminate health information through women’s groups and consider all positive effects of urban residence among rural women to improve screening utilization.