Assessing the Awareness of Cervical Cancer among Female Students in Selected Senior High Schools in Lower Manya Krobo Municipality of Ghana

Abstract

This study assessed the awareness of cervical cancer among female students in selected senior high schools in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality. The study sought to find out if the students perceive themselves of being at risk, if they know the risk factors of the disease and available vaccines and screening services. It was a cross-sectional study where 389 participants were selected from the four (4) Senior High Schools in a stratified sampling approach using a school as a sampling unit. Open and close-ended questionnaire was administered to participants and data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics, simple logistic regression and multinomial logistic regression. The study revealed that although the respondents had heard about cervical cancer, most of them lacked knowledge on the risk factors of the disease. Respondents did not identify HPV as a risk factor. The study also revealed significant association between cervical cancer knowledge and respondents’ school (p-value: 0.00), Form (p-value: 0.002) and residential status (p-value: 0.013). A smaller percentage (29.05) believed they were at risk of getting cervical cancer. Most of the respondents (60.67%) preferred to get their information from health workers. Moving from Form 1 to Form 3, a student from Akuse Methodist was 1.02 times more likely to know of the disease compared to the counterpart in Krobo Girls (the base school), adjusting for all other covariates in the multinomial logistic model. Similarly, for switching from a Boarder to Day, a student from Akuse Methodist compared to Krobo Girls stands a high chance (12.28) of getting knowledge on the disease and consequently was 8.35 times more likely to also get information of this disease from teachers and religious leaders adjusting for all predicting variables. Given the restrictive nature of the boarding school system to access of information, boarders should be target for more educative programs on the risk factors of cervical cancer.