By: http://leadership.ng
Source: Leadership
A recent research conducted by the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) revealed that religious, cultural and geographical factors influence the choice of cervical cancer screening methods women adopt.
A report on the study was obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.
The study, entitled “Influence of Spirituality and Modesty on Acceptability of Self-Sampling for Cervical Cancer Screening’’ enrolled 600 participants from South-Western and North Central Nigeria.
According to the findings of the study, women prefer healthcare providers screening them than doing it themselves with self-sampling devices at home.
Two researchers at IHVN’s Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, Dr Eileen Dareng and Dr Fatima Modibbo, noted in the report that the factors and barriers that determined the choices of the women also differed.
According to their findings contained in the report, women who live in the South West part of the country are more likely to prefer self-sampling than women living in the North Central states.
The study hypothesised that the trend could have been prompted by the South Western women’s higher level of education due to their exposure to western influence than those in North Central states.
Modibbo said “the findings show that awareness on cervical cancer screening is higher among Christian women than Muslim women but more Muslim women prefer self-sampling.
“The Muslim women feel discriminated against by healthcare providers in hospitals who can easily surmise their religious affiliation from their mode of dressing.
“The Muslim women prefer female nurses or doctors to carry out the screening on them than their Christian counterparts.’’
According to the authors of the research, the findings did not support an intuition that highly religious people would be keener in accepting self-sampling devices.
The authors stated that the research conclusions were arrived at using some bio-statistical tools and some multi-variable logistic regression models that took account of modesty and religion.
Prof. Clement Adebamowo, the Principal Investigator for the African Collaborative Centre for Micro biome and Genomic Research (ACCME), commended the efforts of the researchers.
Adebamowo said that the findings of the research had revealed some of the reasons for the low level of cervical cancer screening in the country and other low and middle income countries.
He said “programmes for cervical cancer screening need to be aware of these socio-behavioural determinants and barriers to screening.
“The findings from the research will improve the design and integration of appropriate health education interventions for screening programmes.’’
According to World Health Organisation’s GLOBOCAN 2012 database, cervical cancer is the cause of about 12,000 deaths annually in Nigeria and the second most common cancer after breast cancer among women in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, ongoing studies by IHVN are revealing the genetic, epidemiological and vaginal micro-environmental risk factors of persistent high risk Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) infection and cervical cancer, and how these differ from one part of Africa to another.
The research on self-sampling is an ACCME project research funded by U.S. National Institutes of Health’s Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3 Africa) Initiative.
The project facilitates contemporary research of genomics and environmental determinants of common diseases in Africa. (NAN)