Awareness, Attitude and Acceptance of Cervical Cancer Screening Among Mothers in Selected Communities in Obowo and Owerri North L.G.A. In Imo State

This study ascertained the awareness, attitude and acceptance of cervical cancer screening among mothers in Obowo and Owerri North L.G.A. in Imo State. The study was carried out using a descriptive cross sectional research design, having four research questions and two hypotheses. The population of the study comprised 1240 women in Obowo and Owerri North LGAs and a sample size of 302 women were selected from the two groups of women. This size was determined using the Taro Yamane formula. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire sectioned in 4 parts viz A for awareness of cervical cancer; B- attitude of women towards cervical cancer screening; C- acceptance level of cervical cancer screening; and D- barriers to uptake of cervical cancer screening. The research questions were answered using mean scores while the hypotheses were tested using chi-square statistics on SPSS 24. The major findings are that fifty-seven (57.00%) and (38.40%) of the respondents in Obowo and Owerri North have good awareness of cervical cancer while 43.00% and 61.50% have poor awareness of cervical cancer and this awareness is significantly related to demographic variables; majority of the respondents in Obowo and Owerri North have positive attitude towards cervical cancer screening (2.83 and 2.58 respectively). However, women of Obowo have a higher mean attitude score than women of Owerri North; among the women who have not undergone the test, only 33.30% of the women in Obowo are willing to take up the test and only 34.20% of the women in Owerri North are willing to take up cervical cancer screening implying that both women in the LGAs have low rate of acceptance of cervical cancer screening among them and acceptance is significantly related to awareness (p<.05); among the respondents who have not taken the screening, their major barriers are fear of pain (60%), cost implications (45.40%), fear of diagnosis (36.10%), free screening (48.80%) and many more. The researcher recommends among others that every woman of childbearing age should take up cervical cancer screening.