Christodoulou Andria, Ajzajian Jirayr, Su Dejun, Wang Hongmei, Roupa Zoe, Farazi Paraskevi A
University of Nicosia, 46 Makedonitissas Avenue, Nicosia 2417, Cyprus.
Cyprus Institute for Environmental and Public Health, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol 3036, Cyprus.
Ecancermedicalscience. 2019 Nov 20;13:978. doi: 10.3332/ecancer.2019.978. eCollection 2019.
Cervical cancer incidence varies around the world with the highest rates in Eastern Africa and the lowest rates in Western Asia. In Cyprus, a small Mediterranean island, cervical cancer incidence was 6.4 per 100,000 in 2013. HPV is an established risk factor for cervical cancer with HPV-16 and HPV-18 being the most common carcinogenic strains. Cervical cancer is preventable through primary (HPV vaccination) and secondary (Pap and HPV tests) prevention. These prevention methods should be promoted, however, in order to design a cancer prevention programme and the awareness and characteristics of populations should be investigated so that prevention programmes can be targeted specifically to them.
In this work, we sought to investigate awareness of HPV and cervical cancer prevention among female healthcare workers in Cyprus. To achieve this, we conducted a 60-item survey among 200 healthcare professionals in randomly selected hospitals in two different cities within Cyprus.
Our results revealed that nearly 10% of our participants reported not ever having had a Pap test. 88.5% of the healthcare workers knew about HPV and 86.5% reported that HPV is transmitted through sexual intercourse. 83.5% of the participants were willing to vaccinate themselves for cervical cancer prevention.
Even though awareness and vaccination acceptance were relatively high, they are still not optimal for healthcare professionals who play an essential role in health promotion. We suggest the design of educational programmes to target this population and improve their knowledge so that they can promote cervical cancer prevention in their health practice.
宫颈癌发病率在世界各地有所不同，东非地区发病率最高，西亚地区发病率最低。在塞浦路斯这个地中海小岛上，2013年宫颈癌发病率为每10万人中有6.4例。人乳头瘤病毒（HPV）是宫颈癌的既定危险因素，其中HPV - 16和HPV - 18是最常见的致癌菌株。宫颈癌可通过一级预防（HPV疫苗接种）和二级预防（巴氏涂片检查和HPV检测）来预防。然而，为了设计癌症预防计划，应该对人群的认知和特征进行调查，以便预防计划能够专门针对他们。
在这项研究中，我们试图调查塞浦路斯女性医护人员对HPV和宫颈癌预防的认知情况。为了实现这一目标，我们在塞浦路斯两个不同城市的随机选择的医院中，对200名医护人员进行了一项包含60个项目的调查。
我们的结果显示，近10%的参与者报告从未进行过巴氏涂片检查。88.5%的医护人员知道HPV，86.5%的人报告HPV通过性行为传播。83.5%的参与者愿意接种疫苗预防宫颈癌。
尽管认知度和疫苗接种接受度相对较高，但对于在健康促进中发挥重要作用的医护人员来说，这些仍未达到最佳状态。我们建议针对这一人群设计教育计划，提高他们的知识水平，以便他们能够在医疗实践中推广宫颈癌预防。
