Awareness of Cervical Cancer Risk Factors and Screening Behaviour among Nurses in a Rural Region of Turkey

The demographic characteristics of nurses and knowledge on risk factors of cervical cancer, as well asawareness of symptoms and attitudes in terms of screening programmers such as Pap smear, were assessed in across-sectional survey of nurses working in public Health Cabins and Family Health Centers in the rural area ofIzmir, located in the western region of Turkey. Of the nurses who participated in the research, 69.1% (67) saidthat they had talked about cancer and cancer prevention with their families or friends; 60.8% (59) believed thattheir occupation was important for cancer prevention; 11.3% of the nurses had a history of cancer in theirfamilies; and 63.9% (62) thought that their knowledge about cervical cancer was adequate. There were nosignificant differences between knowledge or attitudes about cervical cancer risk factors or symptoms andscreening methods regarding age, marital status, years of experience (p>0.05). However, there was a statisticallysignificant relationship between having received a pap test and having a history of cancer in their family (p<0.05).In conclusion, this study has shown that most nurses knew about the Pap smear test as a cervical cancer screeningmethods. However, there were no significant differences between knowledge or attitudes about cervical cancerrisk factors or symptoms and screening methods regarding age, marital status, years of experience.