Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
Department of Psychology, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.
BMC Womens Health. 2019 Nov 19;19(1):140. doi: 10.1186/s12905-019-0842-y.
Cervical cancer knowledge and awareness, as well as an individual's perceptions about cervical cancer have been shown to significantly influence the screening practices of female students. Despite these studies, the mechanisms linking cervical cancer knowledge to screening practices among female students remain unexplored in the literature. Thus, this study examined the direct and indirect influences of cervical cancer knowledge on screening practices through perceptions about cervical cancer as informed by the health belief model.
A cross-sectional survey design with a purposive sample of 200 female students were used in the study. Standardized questionnaires were used to measure cervical cancer knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived seriousness, perceived benefits, perceived barriers and cervical cancer screening behaviours. The Pearson product-moment correlation co-efficient and mediation analyses were used to analyse the data.
Our findings showed that cervical cancer knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived seriousness and perceived benefits were significant and positively correlated with increased screening behaviours. However, only perceived seriousness significantly mediated the relationship between cervical cancer knowledge and screening behaviour. Cervical cancer knowledge remained a significant direct predictor of screening behaviour in all the models.
These findings underscore the need for increased awareness with emphasis on the seriousness of cervical cancer among female university students as it plays a key role in influencing their screening behaviours.
宫颈癌知识和意识，以及个体对宫颈癌的认知，已被证明会显著影响女学生的筛查行为。尽管已有这些研究，但文献中仍未探讨将宫颈癌知识与女学生筛查行为联系起来的机制。因此，本研究通过健康信念模型中提供的对宫颈癌的认知，检验了宫颈癌知识对筛查行为的直接和间接影响。
本研究采用了横断面调查设计和目的抽样法，共纳入 200 名女学生。使用标准化问卷来测量宫颈癌知识、感知易感性、感知严重性、感知益处、感知障碍和宫颈癌筛查行为。采用 Pearson 积差相关系数和中介分析来分析数据。
研究结果表明，宫颈癌知识、感知易感性、感知严重性和感知益处与增加的筛查行为呈显著正相关。然而，只有感知严重性显著中介了宫颈癌知识与筛查行为之间的关系。在所有模型中，宫颈癌知识仍然是筛查行为的显著直接预测因子。
这些发现强调了需要提高女大学生对宫颈癌严重性的认识，因为它在影响她们的筛查行为方面起着关键作用。
