Knowledge, Attitude and Practices about Cervical Cancer and Screening among Nurses of a Tertiary Care Centre in Western India -

Introduction: Nurses play a crucial role of enlightening community about need and availability of screening test so it is important to explore the knowledge, attitude and practices of nurses about cervical cancer and screening. Methodology: A pretested semi structured questionnaire used to carry out the study among nurses of a tertiary care centre in Western India. Observations: Out of total 103 nurses, 90.3% were married with mean age was 34 years. Majority (98%) were aware about cervical cancer while 73.8% agreed that it could be prevented. Major symp-toms of cervical cancer recognized were irregular bleeding (31.7%) & foul smelling vaginal discharge (34.2%). Nursing academic study (51.3%) was the leading source of all information. Risk factors identified were Human Papilloma Virus (15.6%) and poor personal hygine (14.7%). As many as 62% nurses felt that they were not at risk of cervical cancer. Only 3.9% had received HPV vaccine. Conclusions: This study highlights major Knowledge, Attitude, Practice gap among nursing staff regarding cervical cancer.