Health education and health awareness in the prevention of cervical cancer

Introduction: The role of health education and health awareness is of great importance in the prevention of cervical cancer. Special emphasis is put on preventive behaviors. These activities are meant to detect the disease, gain knowledge about the state of our health and undertake early treatment, draw attention to the merits of preventive testing, which belongs to a group of health-related preventive behaviors and are part of a lifestyle that affects the actual state of health.

Aim: To determine whether pedagogy and sociology female students represent the appropriate attitude concerning the prevention of cervical cancer, so that they could become role models for other women and act in the future as health educators.

Material and methods: The study was conducted from May to June 2010. The sample consisted of 284 female students of pedagogy and sociology (in both cases, the 5-year two-cycle studies) from two universities in Szczecin. All study participants took part in lectures on the sociology of health, preventative health care and diseases of the twenty-first century civilization, carried out in the academic year 2009-2010. The lectures’ program included, among others, selected topics in the field of cervical cancer prevention. The respondents filled in an anonymous self-reflexive questionnaire consisting of 16 questions, investigating their opinions and attitudes regarding cervical cancer prevention.

Results: The attitude of the students regarding cervical cancer prevention is not exemplary. According to the respondents, the availability of information concerning the prophylactics program is limited. The basis source of information about the program are personal invitations for smear tests. A high percentage of respondents, who fear gynecological examination, is very worrying. Since the fear of the smear test itself is not high, it seems that factors related to a gynecological study can be one of the main reasons of the low consultation rate at free screening. Most respondents would like free smear tests to be obligatory and included in the list of periodic employee health examinations. However, it is clear that respondents do not want to take the responsibility for doing these tests regularly.

Conclusions: Sociology and pedagogy graduates, who have knowledge of the sociology of health, preventive medicine and modern-age diseases of the 21st century, should be role models for other women and play an important role in health education.