Knowledge, attitude and practice towards cervical cancer screening among women living with human immunodeficiency virus: Implication for prevention strategy uptake

Abstract

Abstract Aim To explore the knowledge, attitude and practices of cervical cancer screening among HIV‐infected women in public health facilities in Lusaka, Zambia. Design Cross‐sectional study. Methods The study was conducted from 1st January 2020 to 28th February 2020. We used a structured questionnaire for data collection. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to analyse relationships among latent variables (knowledge, attitude and practice). Results The overall knowledge, attitude, and practice scores of cervical cancer screening among women living with HIV were 6.86/11 (62.4%), 6.41/7 (91.6%) and 2.92/8 (36.5%), respectively. Overall, knowledge was positively and significantly associated with attitude (r = .53, p < .001) and practice (r = .38, p < 0.001). Additionally, attitude and practice were significantly associated (r = 0.29, p < .001). Our findings support the reinforcement of current public health interventional programmes to improve the knowledge about cervical cancer and screening uptake.

Keywords

• attitude
• cervical cancer
• HIV infection
• knowledge
• screening