Knowledge and Views of Secondary School Students in Kuala Lumpur on Cervical Cancer and its Prevention

Abstract

Cervical cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in women worldwide. Persistent infection with a human papillomavirus (HPV) is the main cause for cervical cancer. Vaccination and Pap smear screening are the best methods for prevention of the disease. The objective of this cross-sectional study was to assess the knowledge and views of upper secondary school female students in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, toward prevention of cervical cancer. This study was conducted from April 2009 to September 2009 in 8 schools in Kuala Lumpur area using pre-tested and validated questionnaires. Results indicated that the respondents had low knowledge of cervical cancer and its prevention although the majority of students (80.4%) had heard about the disease. The level of knowledge of cervical cancr and its prevention was significantly higher among students from the science stream (p<0.001) compared to students from the art stream. Most students (69.3%) agreed to take the vaccination if the service was available in schools. A high percentage of students (82.2%) agreed that the vaccination should be compulsory to the students. In conclusion, most students had low knowledge of cervical cancer and its prevention but they had positive attitude toward vaccination and agreed that vaccination should be compulsory. Therefore, suitable educational programmes should be developed to improve the knowledge of secondary school students on the prevention of cervical cancer.

Knowledge, attitudes and beliefs towards compulsory vaccination: a systematic review

“…A total of 22 studies assessed knowledge, attitudes and beliefs towards vaccination programs [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] (Table 1), while 9 papers, two of which presented results obtained from the same study, assessed attitudes towards the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine in young girls specifically (Table 2). 25,26,38,[44][45][46][47]…”

“…There were 8 studies (9 papers) focusing on HPV vaccination, published between 2010 26,38,48,49 and 2016. 25 Half of the studies were performed in the USA, 26,38,44,48,49 one in Malaysia, 46 one in Guyana, 47 one in Nigeria 45 and one in Hungary. 25 Samples consisted of parents and caretakers of adolescents in a first group of studies, 26,38,44,49 students from high school in two studies, 25,46 both parents and children in one study, 47 and women over 18 years old in the two final studies.…”

“…The percentage of agreement with mandatory vaccination were respectively 35.7% in Hungary, 25 40% in Guyana 47 and 82.2% in Malaysia. 46 The Hungarian sample was the largest: Balla et al interviewed 1022 students aged ≥18 years in 19 high schools in Budapest 25 . Their aim was to assess knowledge on HPV infection and cervical cancer and to examine the attitude towards the HPV vaccine and cervical cancer screening: 35.7% of the sample favoured compulsory vaccination, 31.4% was undecided and 32.9% was against it.…”

Young Hungarian Students’ Knowledge about HPV and Their Attitude Toward HPV Vaccination

“…According to previous international studies, disease awareness has a positive impact on the attitude of young adults toward HPV vaccination; thus, it must be considered as a protective factor [19,20,21]. There was also a positive association between knowledge, trust in the vaccine, and the number of received doses, which indicated that more trust in the vaccine resulted in higher acceptance [20,22].…”

Assessment of knowledge, awareness and preventive measures of cervical cancer among female medical students

“…Most of the participants who took part revealed that they heard about the cervical cancer (97%), 77% participants responded that they heard about pap smear test. Several studies reported that participants have heard about cervical cancer and pap smear test [11][12][13][14] .Media such as the television, radio, internet and etc (media) play a very important role in awareness of cervical cancer among women [15][16][17] . In our study we have found that different source of knowledge this can be due to the fact that most of the participants who took part in the study are in first year of medical course.…”