A qualitative study of cervical cancer and cervical cancer screening awareness among nurses in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Despite the availability of cervical cancer screening tools, including those that are appropriate for low resource settings, the rates of preventive cervical cancer screening remain extremely low among women in LMICS. Nurse-led education interventions have been proven to be effective at increasing participation in healthcare recommendations. However, there is a need to determine nurses' knowledge of cervical cancer and cervical cancer prevention in order to develop effective health education interventions. Our goal was to assess Ghanaian nurses' knowledge of cervical cancer and cervical cancer prevention. Interviews and small focus groups were conducted with 42 nurses at two hospitals in Ghana. Awareness of cervical cancer was very high among the nurses. However, the majority of the participants held negative perceptions about cervical cancer and lacked knowledge about cervical cancer risk factors and prevention. The results can be used to inform the development of culturally-relevant cervical cancer education interventions targeted towards women and healthcare providers in LMICs.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Acknowledgments

Special thank you to the nurses who participated in this study. Sincere appreciation goes to Dorothy Kelly for supporting this study. Thank you to Dr. Jemima Dennis-Antwi, Mrs. Hannah Acquah, Mrs. Victoria Quaye, and Dr. Solomon Brookman. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of UAB.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by a Career Enhancement Award from the University of Alabama (UAB) Office of Postdoctoral Education. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of UAB. This research was also supported by and a grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to the University of Mississippi Medical Center (1R25HL126145-01-MPIs Beech and Norris).