Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Regarding Cervical Cancer Screening Among Village Health Volunteers

Background: In the years 2014, coverage rates of cervical cancer screening in Nakornnayok province accountedto 76.5%. This was lower than the government’s specified goal of 80%. Community health volunteers are membersof a Thai healthcare alliance established to help promoting healthcare service communication and collaborationat the primary level. Such village health volunteers (VHVs) are established in most villages.
Objective: To assessthe knowledge and attitudes of cervical cancer screening among VHVs. Materials and
Methods: The subjectswere 128 VHVs from four Nakornnayok sub-districts; namely KlongYai, Chomphol, Buangsan and Suksara,Thailand. The study was conducted from December 2014 to January 2015. The questionnaire was designed toassess the knowledge and attitude of cervical cancer screening provided by the VHVs. In addition, cervical cancerscreening coverage rates of each area were collected. The demographic data, scores of knowledge, attitudes,practices and the cervical cancer screening coverage rates were analyzed by one-way ANOVA.
Results: Thequestionnaire reliability was assessed as 0.81. The total knowledge and attitude scores were 10 and 15 points.The mean knowledge scores of KlongYai, Chomphol, Buangsan and Suksara were 6.8, 7.0, 6.5 and 9.0 points,respectively. The VHVs had a high level of overall knowledge about cervical cancer screening. The mean attitudescores were 12.4, 13.2, 13.4 and 13.1 points. VHVs had a positive attitude to the promotion of cervical cancerscreening at the overall level. The percentages of VHVs promoting cervical cancer information in respectivedistricts were 72.2, 94.3, 94.9 and 50.0. However, the cervical cancer screening coverage rates were 62.4%,34.7%, 80.3% and 47.3% respectively.
Conclusions: The knowledge, attitudes and percentages of promotinginformation of cervical cancer screening among VHVs in the four sub-districts were high but did not correlatewith the cervical screening coverage rates for each area. VHVs needed to understand socio-cultural beliefs of thewomen in the target population and design suitable strategies to encourage higher cervical screening coverage.