Correlates Of Knoledge On Cervical Cancer Among Female Students Of College Of Health Scienceaddis Ababa Universityethiopia

Introduction: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer affecting women ofrnreproductive age. It causes 270,000 annual deaths, of which most occur in low- andrnmiddle-income countries. Cervical cancer screening has been consistently shown to berneffective in reducing the incidence rate or the occurrence of new cervical cancer casesrnand mortality from the disease. However, cervical cancer screening attendance rate arernstill far from satisfactory in many countries. In Ethiopia, an estimated 7,600 new cervicalrncancer cases are diagnosed annually. Medicine and health science students are youngrnstudents within the most vulnerable age bracket for HPV infection, and by virtue of theirrndiscipline they are expected to have good knowledge of HPV vaccine as well as HPVrninfection and its relation to cervical cancer. However, the knowledge on cervical cancerrnamong health science students in Ethiopia has not been adequately studied.rnGeneral objective: To assess the correlates of knowledge on cervical cancer amongrnfemale students in College of Health Sciences of Addis Ababa UniversityrnMethods: Institution based cross sectional quantitative study was conducted on randomlyrnselected female students from all departments of the College of Health Sciences fromrnMarch – April, 2016. To obtain a representative sample, simple random sampling wasrnapplied to select study participants from the source population. First, all schools andrndepartments in the university were identified by name. Next the calculated sample sizern(437) was distributed to each School and Department in the college using probabilityrnproportional to size (PPS). And the numbers of female students required for the study inrneach school and department were determined. For the data entry and analysis EpiInfo 7rnand STATA12.0 were used. Also statistical analysis was employed (binary andrnmultivariate logistic regression).rnResult: Out of the total 437students 11 students returned the questionnaires withrnincomplete response. This gives a total response rate of 98%. The mean age of thernparticipants was 22 years (+/- 2 SD) ranging from 18 to 32. Great majority of thernIXrnparticipants 397(93.1%) mentioned that cancer of the uterine cervix is a female genitalrntract problem. A total of 399(93%) participants have heard of cervical cancer,rn389(91.3%) of knew that HPV is risk factor of cervical cancer. Overall, 309(72.5%) hadrngood knowledge and 117(27.4%) had poor knowledge. Similar proportion of thernrespondents, 332(77.7%), had positive attitude while 95(22.2%) had negative attitude.rnAmong sexually active respondents only 5(5.3%) of the female students underwentrncervical cancer screening test. Students in the School of Allied Health Sciences were tworntimes more likely (95%CI 1.02, 3.4) to have good knowledge compared to the studentsrnfrom School of Medicine. Students whose fathers had primary level education were50%rnless likely (95%CI 0.25, 0.92) to have good knowledge compared to students whosernfathers had college and above level education.rnConclusion: Overall, female health science students had good knowledge on and attituderntoward cervical cancer. However, only very small proportion of had screening forrncervical cancer. The study also revealed that type of school of the students and theirrnfathers’ education levels were significantly associated with their knowledge cervicalrncancer.rnRecommendation: Establishing accessible screening program both on national andrnregional levels as well in higher institution in order to target students to cervical cancerrnscreening for ministry of health. Further study should be conducted at schools,rncommunity and national level to target all females and to solve other unclear findings.

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