2021, Vol. 4, Issue 2, Part A

author(s)
Neha Rajpoot, Mukesh Kumar and Sandhya Kushwah

abstract
Background: Cervical cancer is a devastating disease for women around the world. Nearly 500,000 women suffer from the disease and more than 270,000 die each year. Globally, cervical cancer is the second-most-common cancer among women. It is the leading cause of female cancer deaths in developing countries, where 80% of cervical cancer cases and deaths occur. Tragically, this disease strikes women at a relatively young age. Many victims of cervical cancer die in their early 40s, it is the most common cancer among Indian women of reproductive age. Unfortunately, despite the evidence of methods for prevention, most of the women remain unscreened. The reported barriers to screening include unawareness of risk factors, symptoms and prevention; stigma and misconceptions about gynecological diseases and lack of national cervical cancer screening guidelines and policies. The knowledge and attitude of nursing personnel towards cervical cancer screening can grossly influence the community. Objective: To assess the knowledge of working women regarding cervical cancer. To find out the association between knowledge of working women and selected demographic variables. To prepare and distribute an informational booklet on cervical cancer. Method: The research approach adopted for this study is descriptive in nature, Non-experimental research design is used. 50 subjects were collected by using convenient sampling techniques. The researcher introduced herself to the respondents and explained the purpose of the study to the women who were working in school. After this investigator collected the data from working women in school by using self-structured questionnaire to assess the knowledge regarding cervical cancer and distributed self-prepared an informational booklet on cervical cancer. Result: The result shows that 6% (3 women out of 50) had good knowledge about cervical cancer who scored between 21-30 marks out of 30 marks, 26% (13 women out of 50) had average knowledge about cervical cancer who scored between 11-20 marks out of 30 marks, 68% (34 women out of 50) had poor knowledge about cervical cancer who scored between 0-10 marks out of 30 marks. Significant association is checked by chi square test. There is no significant association between the knowledge score and selected demographic variables (Age, gender, language, marital status, and qualification.) at 0.05 level of significance. Conclusion: In this study the majority of the respondents in knowledge level was 68% (34 women out of 50) who had poor knowledge about cervical cancer who scored between 0-10 marks out of 30 marks.