Effect of an Educational Intervention Based on Protection Motivation Theory on Preventing Cervical Cancer among Marginalized Women in West Iran

Objective: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of an educational intervention to prevent cervical canceramong marginalized Iranianwomen based on the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) as a theoretical framework.Methods: This quasi-experimental study was carried out on 143 women of Kermanshah City in western Iran during2017. Participants were recruited through cluster and simple random sampling and randomly divided into experimental(n=72) and control groups (n=71). All completed a self-administered questionnaire including PMT constructs anddemographic variables. An intervention over six sessions was then applied to the experimental group. Reassessmentwas conducted three months after the intervention, with data was analyzed with SPSS-16 using chi-square, McNemar,paired T- and independent T-tests. Results: The mean scores for the constructs of PMT, and cervical cancer screeningbehavior showed no significant differences between the two groups before the intervention (P>0.05). The educationalmanipulation had significant effects on the experimental groups’ average response for perceived vulnerability, perceivedseverity, perceived reward, self-efficacy, response efficacy, response cost and protection motivation (all p 0.05). Conclusions: The results show that applyingan educational intervention based on PMT might help prevent cervical cancer and improve regular Pap smear testing.