Community Medicine Abstracts - College of Medicine and Health ...

Project No. 39 (1994)The Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Pap Smear among UAE WomenStudent Authors: Aisha Sultan Moh'd Al DhaheriFaculty Supervisors: Dr. M.M. HossainAbstract:Objectives To determine the acceptability of UAE women for pap smear as a routinesession concerning cervical cancer and its methods of early detection.Design Cross-sectional descriptive and analytic study with before-and-aftercomparison to assess educational intervention impact. Subjects were married UAEnational women attending women’s association schools.Setting 3 different associations in Abu –Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai.Results 78.5% have heard about cervical cancer and 50.43% of the women heardabout pap smear. The major source of their information is the newspaper andmagazines (64.00%) followed by TV (36.73%) and the least source is doctors andnurses (1.09%). 72.93% knew that it is possible to treat it if detected early enoughbefore the educational session, this increased to 90.24% after the session. Theknowledge that cervical cancer can be detected early by pap smear increased from30.20% to 95.56%. The knowledge that early detection has better outcome increasedfrom 49% to 98.22. The percentage of women willing to have pap smear increasedfrom 55.56% to 70.41%. The major reason behind refusing to have a pap smear is thebelieve that the woman is healthy (55.13%) followed by being shy (29.49) and thethought that taking pap smear may be painful (21.15%). 51.57% of women wanted tohave reminder before the session while 65.68% wanted to have a reminder after thesession. The majority of women would like to receive their reminder by phone(33.73%) and the majority would like the smear to be taken in a well women clinic(37.57%) even in Abu-Dhabi and Dubai where there is no well women clinic.Conclusion Educating the concerned women about cervical cancer and its method forearly detection should have more attention from the health authorities. Healthprofessionals have the least influence on women education. The knowledge andattitude can be modified by spreading the right concepts and even the practice can bemodified by long term education, persuasion, motivation and facilitation.