A Study of the Impact of Information Channels on Cervical Pap Smear Screening Knowledge and Use among Womenin Taichung City

• Main Authors: Mei-Yeh Huang, 黃美燁
• Other Authors: 廖述盛
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/04965590863470725091

碩士 === 中國醫藥大學 === 醫務管理學研究所碩士班 === 98 === Background and objectives: Cervical cancer is one of the most seen female cancers. It is also a cancer which is most suitable for screening and prevention. Compared with other countries, the Papnicolaou (Pap) smear rate is low in Taiwan. This study is based on the health belief model and the concept of the social marketing, and to identify the impact of information channels on cervical Pap smear screening knowledge and use. Methods: The research used the structured questionnaire by individual design to survey the female patients or family members aged more than 30 years old seeking medical treatment, and a total of 612 effective questionnaires has received(the recovery rate: 93.58%) and were collected from medical centers, regional hospitals, and local hospitals in Taichung city by the convenience sampling. Results: First, we extracted three factors from nine information channels by factor analysis, and we named three factors separately personal information channels, mass media information channels, and health education activities information channels. In multiple regression analysis, based on the personal information channels and mass media information channels, the factors associated with more cervical Pap smear screening knowledge are consisted of younger age, suffered from cervical cancer, household average monthly income(between twenty thousand to hundred thousand NT dollars and above), occupation(medical personnel), and education level(university, college or above). In ordinal logistic regression, based on the personal information channels and health education activities information channels, the factors associated with more cervical Pap smear screening use are consisted of marry status (married status and other situation including divorce, living separately, and being a widower or widow), household average monthly income (between seventy thousand to hundred thousand NT dollars), worried about influencing the family livelihood if suffering from cervical cancer, seeking medical advice because of female problems, vaccinated against cervical cancer, approved the thought of Papnicolaou (Pap) smear which is a useful screening test to detect cervical cancer, and more cervical Pap smear screening knowledge. The factors associated with less cervical Pap smear screening use are consisted of occupation(medical personnel), higher perceived susceptibility of having cervical cancer, and being afraid of the screening result if it is not positive. Conclusions: According to the results, in “knowledge” part, we suggest that the health authorities can team up with the medical organizations and use the manner of community health guidance and mass media information channels to get a better outcome by indirect interaction between medical professional personnel, famous people, the people who suffered from the same disease, and the general public. In “use” part, public health centers can combine with the doctors of local community obstetrics and gynecology department or medical organizations to build the reminder system, follow-up system, and oversight mechanisms, also they can provide the health education leaflets and manuals as extension promotion.