Determining Nurse-Midwives’ Knowledge of the Pap-Smear Test and their Rate of Being Tested in Turkey

Background: Cervical cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer mortality among women worldwide,but actually is largely preventable. The practice of Pap smear testing (PST) needs to be expanded in order todiagnose cervical cancer at an early stage and thus reduce the burden this women’s health problem brings tothe society. Effective public education is therefore crucial. Determining the knowledge and practice of nursesin this field will help plan their training and develop the necessary training program with an adequate content.This descriptive study aimed at determining the knowledge on, and status of the PST among the nurse/midwives.
Methods: The subjects comprised nurse/midwives working in the gynecologic/obstetric clinics of three big hospitalslocated in the central city of Ankara. The data collected through questionnaire were evaluated by means of thepackage software SPSS as well as decimal number and Chi-square tests.
Results: The results revealed that thenurse/midwives had not enough knowledge on PST, of whom 58.1% had got no PST, while a portion of 71.5%of those who had already underwent a PST failed in getting regular tests, and a portion of 73.5% had got noon-job training on the gynecological cancers, and a portion of 66.7% of the trained ones had not any knowledgein respect of PTS. It was determined that there was a significant statistical difference in the level of knowledgeon PST in terms of on-job training in respect of the gynecological cancers and the PST history (p<0.05).