Barriers to the Pap Smear in Women of Fertile Age

Gloria Maricela Guerra Rodríguez¹*, Octavio Augusto Olivares Ornelas², Héctor Manuel Gil Vázquez¹, Erika Berenice Rodríguez Martínez³ and Manuel Alejandro Sanchez Bernal⁴

Received: October 03, 2018;   Published: October 11, 2018

DOI: 10.32474/LOJMS.2018.02.000129

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Abstract

In Mexico, it is recommended for the female population in active sexual age to perform the Papanicolau (PAP) smear each year Minister of Health [1] as an strategy for the timely detection of cervical cancer (CC), however, there are multiple reasons that can explain the low adherence to control via PAP smear, some of them, a deficient education, cultural and religious influences, wrong information, access and quality to health services Gajardo and Urrutia [2].

Objective: Identify the barriers for the collection of the PAP smear in a group of women in fertile age.

Material and Methods: The design was descriptive, transversal Polit and Hungler [3] in a population of women in fertile age in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico; the sampling was by convenience, with a final sample of 150 women, using the CPC-28 Urrutia [4] instrument.

Results: The profile of the women match an average age of 35 years, married, in a stable sexual relationship, with a middle school academic level. Indexes are reported with averages oscillating between 2.48 (SD=1.41) and 2.55 (SD=1.40) where it is mentioned that PAP is not performed due to fear of comments about having cancer, due to shame to being examined in the genitals and due to a lack of time to perform the PAP.

Conclusions: Although the continuous promotion for the timely detection of cancer, we can observe that the same barriers for the collection of PAP remains in multiple studies in Latin America, where the lack of information, beliefs and modesty as the prevails as the main factors of women behavior against prevention.

Keywords: Papanicolau (PAP); Cervical Cancer (CC); Human Papiloma Virus (HPV); Barriers

Abbreviations: PAP: Papanicolau CC: Cervical Cancer; HPV: Human Papilloma Virus

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