245P - Factors influencing adherence to cryotherapy following positive VIA result as cervical cancer prevention in Temanggung, Central Java, Indonesia

Background

Cervical cancer ranked second on women in Indonesia with 23.4/100,000 population incidence and 13.9/100,000 population mortality, emphasizing the importance of its screening and prevention. Indonesian government have applied cancer “see and treat” method with visual inspection using acetic acid (VIA) followed by cryotherapy procedure, but the number of women complying with the program were only 5% despite 80% target in 2013. This study aimed to explore factors influencing women with VIA positive result’s likelihood to receive cryotherapy.

Methods

Our cross-sectional study observed “see and treat” program at Temanggung District Health Office, Central Java, Indonesia, between March 29 and April 31, 2018. We used simple random sampling technique to select 356 VIA possitive women aged 30-50 years and collected data on whether they underwent cryotherapy, their demographic profile, education, knowledge and awareness about cryotherapy, and family support using structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed with chi square analysis on STATA software.

Results

In our study, 217 women (60.69%) received cryotherapy, while 139 women (39.04%) did not. Among all variables analysed, factors affecting subjects’ likelihood to underwent cryotherapy are knowledge about cryotherapy itself (PR = 0.776, 95%CI=0.660-0.913, p = 0.003), residence distance (PR = 0.795, 95%CI=0.650-0.971, p = 0.016), permission from family (PR = 0.675, 95%CI=0.556-0.820, p = 0.018), and accompaniment by their family (PR = 0.824, 95%CI=0.700-0.970, p = 0.026). Age, marital status, occupation, and education background did not show significant correlation with women’s decision to receive cryotherapy.

Conclusions

Our study showed that more individuals with VIA positive results were willing to receive cryotherapy as an effort to prevent cervical cancer. However, our study also showed knowledge about cryotherapy, residence distance, family permission and family accompaniment as factors lowering VIA possitive women’s likelihood to receive cryotherapy. Because this study is only limited on Temanggung population, further study is needed to explore larger population and other factors that might also influence this behavior.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

Ethics Committee, Faculty of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing, Universitas Gadjah Mada.

Funding

Board for Development and Empowerment Human Resources of Health, Ministry of Health Republic of Indonesia.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.