KNOWLEDGE PERCEPTION AND PRACTICE AMONG FEMALE INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS TOWARDS CERVICAL CANCER SCREENING IN CHULALONGKORN UNIVERSITY BANGKOK THAILAND

Cervical cancer a female genital tract cancer is the second commonest cancer of females worldwide after breast cancer. This cancer can be prevented through early detection by cervical screening.This study seeks to assess the knowledge, perception and practices of these female international students at Chulalongkorn University relating to cervical cancer and cervical screening. This research was a cross-sectional descriptive study which made use of self- administered anonymously structured questionnaires to achieve the set objectives as well as assess the socio-demographic characteristics and behavioral profile of the target population. Using purposive sampling technique, a total of 172 questionnaires were analyzed as percentage, mean, standard deviation, bi-variate and logistic regression model. This study shows that about 25% of respondents were 18-20 years old, mean age was 24.4 years (standard deviation 5.5) the range is from 18 to 40 years, the majority of them were undergraduates (52.3%) while 40.1% were in the master’s degree level, with 7.6% in the PhD degree level. The majority of the respondents are from Asia origin with South East Asians comprising of 29.0 % East Asians about 18.6 % South Asians 14.0 % the respondents from the European countries were about 28.5%, Americans 5.8% and Africans were the least with only 7 respondents. Awareness about cervical cancer was significantly high among female international students (99.4%), whilst knowledge on the risk factors was insufficient. Although, 56.4% of the respondents claimed to be aware of Pap smear, only 50.0% correctly knew its purpose as a screening method for cervical cancer. Overall perception was positive by more than half (51%) of the respondents and practice of cervical screening among respondents was only 12.2%. Further statistical analysis showed a significant association between knowledge of cervical cancer and practice of cervical screening among the respondents ( p-value=0.014). About 60.5% of the respondents have the intention to uptake cervical screening in the future with age (OR: 3.4., 95%Cl: 1.04-2.0), seen to be the predictor of respondents’ intention to uptake cervical screening in the future. This study shows that overall awareness of cervical screening was low among female international students at Chulalongkorn University while uptake of cervical screening was equally poor.Therefore to improve the knowledge gap reported in this study, further health education is recommended for this class of respondents.