A study of awareness on cervical cancer and prevalence of pathological leucorrhoea among women in rural Chennai

Abstract

Background: Cancers are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity due to non-communicable diseases second only to diabetes. Cervical cancer is the second most important cancer in women. In India nearly 75,000 women die of cervical cancer every year. In Tamil Nadu, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer to affect women especially in the rural areas. Aims of the study were to study about the level of awareness on cervical cancer and prevalence of pathological leucorrhoea among women residing in rural Chennai.Methods: This cross sectional study was carried out among randomly selected 295 females aged 15 years and above residing at Alamadhi village and nearby villages in Chennai from March 2016 to September 2016. Pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data.Results: Among the participants most of the women (55.6%) were belonged to 15-30 years age group. Of all the participants involved in the study about 66.8% (197/295) had No awareness on cervical cancer and among the rest, 27.6% (27/98) had good knowledge and 72.4% (71/98) had inadequate knowledge on cervical cancer. Prevalence of Pathological leucorrhoea is 27.5%.Conclusions: Though cervical cancer is the leading cancer among women, our study shows a large percentage of rural women are completely ignorant about this disease which when detected in early stages is completely curable. Hence, extensive health education to the public is needed to improve their knowledge with an emphasis on the fact that periodic screening is the new standard in prevention of cervical cancer.