Do Women Have Sufficient Awareness of Cervical Cancer and the Pap Smear Test?

Purpose: Early diagnosis and treatment of cervical cancer, which is commonly seen in women globally and has a long preinvasive period, is possible with pap smear screening. The objective of this study is to evaluate women’s knowledge and awareness of cervical cancer risk factors and the Pap smear test. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 350 married or widowed women aged between 30-65 years who presented to five family health centers in different regions of Gaziantep. Data was collected by a face-to-face interviewing technique using a questionnaire form consisting of 24 questions. Results: Although 79.1% of the women had heard about the Pap smear test before, only 54.3% of them had taken the test. It was found that %62.9 of the women knew why a Pap smear test is conducted. The most important reasons why these women did not have a Pap smear test were determined to be that 29.4% of the women considered that they had no risk of cancer while 24.9% had insufficient knowledge about the test. Conclusion: It was found that nearly half of the participants in this study not performed Pap smear test and their knowledge about the test was insufficient. The most important reasons for not performed a Pap smear test were not believing that they had a risk of cancer and not having sufficient knowledge.