Women Too Busy to See Benefit of Screening Cervical Cancer

Women 'Too Busy' to Attend Cervical Cancer Screenings

Women struggle to fit cervical cancer screenings into their schedules, according to a new report.

A new study from Cancer Research UK, which was published in the Journal of Medical Screening, discovered that practical difficulties are almost as big an obstacle to screening as emotional barriers such as embarrassment.

Scientists at Cancer Research UK's Health Behavior Research Center at University College London conducted interviews with 580 women aged between 26 and 64.

The team set about determining the cervical screening history of the women while exploring their perceived barriers to screening, voting behavior and demographic characteristics.

According to the research, 15 per cent of the women were overdue a screening and 2.6 per cent admitted they had never been.

Just under a third of the women who took part in the survey said they felt that embarrassment was a barrier to screening, while 21 per cent said that they intended to go but didn't always get round to it straight away.

A further 14 per cent said fear of pain kept them from attending regular screenings and 12 per cent said that they were worried about what might be found.

Dr Jo Waller, co-author and senior research associate at Cancer Research UK, said: "With uptake of cervical screening in England still much lower than we'd like, these findings suggest that overcoming practical barriers may be the most important factor in maximizing cervical screening uptake.

"These results are encouraging; in the past, it was thought that emotional factors such as concern about embarrassment and pain were the best predictors. Minimizing practical difficulties is a more achievable goal."

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