SHORT REPORT
Migrant women’s knowledge and perceived sociocultural barriers to cervical cancer screening programme: a qualitative study of African women in Poland
 
More details
Hide details
1
Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
 
 
Submission date: 2016-02-28
 
 
Final revision date: 2016-07-20
 
 
Acceptance date: 2016-07-20
 
 
Online publication date: 2017-01-27
 
 
Publication date: 2017-01-27
 
 
Health Psychology Report 2017;5(3):263-271
 
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
This article explores both the knowledge and perception of African women about the importance of screening as a recommended health action to counter the growing rate of cervical cancer in women. The theoretical framework is influenced by the postulations of behavioural theories, sociology of health and the health belief model (HBM) on how people perceive health issues such as cervical cancer and its screening measures. In addition, this study tries to explore the acculturation challenges involved in migration, which adversely affects health knowledge and behaviour of African women. To achieve this, one focus group discussion was conducted with twelve women between the ages of 25 and 54 years old from Egypt, Eritrea, Kenya and Nigeria to share their knowledge of cervical cancer screening programmes in Poland. They constituted a mixture of women from different parts of Africa with cultural differences and different belief systems. Little or no in-depth understanding of Polish language, lack of information about the disease and its screening methods, lack of understanding of the Polish health care systems and social economic factors were issues discussed by these women as socio-cultural barriers to their non-participation in the organised cervical cancer screening programme in Poland. Based on this study, migrant women lack adequate information about cervical cancer, its causes, risk factors and its screening methods. Therefore, this study proposes that good understanding of health care systems, language translation support in the health care system, health awareness campaigns and social relationships are important motivating factors that could encourage migrant women to participate in the cancer screening programmes in Poland.
 
REFERENCES (40)
1.
Afri-Dev info. (2014). Africa cervical cancer incidence & mortality multi-indicator scorecard. Retrieved from http://www.afri-dev.info/wp-co....
 
2.
Ajzen, I. (1998). Attitudes, Personality and Behaviour. Chicago, Illinois: The Dorsey Press.
 
3.
American Cancer Society. (2011). Cancer in Africa. Retrieved from https://www.cancer.org/acs/gro....
 
4.
American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology and American Clinical Society. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.guideline.gov/conte....
 
5.
Azerkan, F., Widmark, C., Sparén, P., Weiderpass, E., Tillgren, P., & Faxelid, E. (2015). When life Got in the way: how Danish and Norwegian immigrant women in Sweden reason about cervical screening and why they postpone attendance. PLoS One, 10, e0107624. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0107624.
 
6.
Balogun, M. R., Odukoya, O. O., Oyediran, M. A., & Ujomu, P. I. (2012). Cervical cancer awareness and preventive practices: a challenge for female urban slum dwellers in Lagos, Nigeria. African Journal of Reproductive Health, 16, 75–82.
 
7.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman.
 
8.
Behavioural risk factor surveillance system. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/previe....
 
9.
Cancer Research UK. (2016). Cervical cancer screening. Retrieved from: http://www.cancerresearchuk.or....
 
10.
Carrie, K., & Bandolin, S. (2010). Cultural and socioeconomic factors affecting cancer screening, early detection and care in the Latino population. Retrieved from https://ethnomed.org/clinical/....
 
11.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC. (CDC vitalsigns) (2014). Cervical Cancer is Preventable. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/....
 
12.
Conner, M. (2010). Cognitive determinants of health behaviour. In Handbook of Behavioural Medicine (pp. 19–30). New York: Springer.
 
13.
Finch, B. K., Frank, R., & Vega, W. A. (2004). Acculturation and acculturation stress: a social-epidemiological approach to Mexican migrant farmworkers’ health. International Migration Review, 38, 236–262. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00195.x.
 
14.
International Agency for Research on Cancer. (IARC, 2005). Cancer prevention. Retrieved from http://www.iarc.fr/en/publicat....
 
15.
International Agency for Research on Cancer. (IARC, 2012). Cancer. Retrieved from http://www.iarc.fr/en/publicat....
 
16.
International Organization for Migration. (2015). World migration report 2015. Retrieved from https://www.iom.int/world-migr....
 
17.
International Organization for Migration. (IOM, 2006). Migration: A social determinant of the health of migrants. Retrieved from http://www.migrant-health-euro....
 
18.
Jach, R. (2014). Tackling Poland’s cervical cancer high mortality rates. Retrieved from http://colposcopycourses.com/t....
 
19.
Jackowska, M., VonWagner, C., Wardle, J., Juszczyk, D., Luszczynska, A., & Waller, J. (2012). Cervical screening among migrant women: a qualitative study of Polish, Slovak and Romanian women in London, UK. The Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care, 38, 229–238. doi: 10.1136/jfprhc-2011-100144.
 
20.
Januszek-Michalecka, L., Nowak-Markwitz, E., Banach, P., & Spaczynski, M. (2013). Effectiveness of the National Population-Based Cervical Cancer Screening Programme in Poland–Outcomes, problems and possible solutions years after implementation. Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine, 20, 859–864.
 
21.
Koutsky, L. (1997) Epidemiology of genital human papillomavirus infection. American Journal of Medicine, 102, 3–8.
 
22.
Leyden, W. A., Manos, M. M., Geiger, A. M., Weinmann, S., Mouchawar, J., Bischoff, K., Yood, M. U., Gilbert, J., & Taplin, S. H. (2005). Cervical cancer in women with comprehensive health care access: attributable factors in the screening process. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 97, 675–683.
 
23.
Nowakowski, A., Cybulski, M., Śliwczyński, A., Chil, A., Teter, Z., Seroczyński, P., & Anttila, A. (2015). The implementation of an organised cervical screening programme in Poland: an analysis of the adherence to European guidelines. BMC Cancer, 15, 279. doi: 10.1186/s12885-015-1242-9.
 
24.
Nygård, J. F., Skare, G. B., & Thoresen, S. Ø. (2002). The cervical cancer screening programme in Norway, 1992–2000: changes in Pap smear coverage and incidence of cervical cancer. Journal of Medical Screening, 9, 86–91.
 
25.
O’Donnell, C. A., Higgins, M., Chauhan, R., & Mullen, K. (2008). Asylum seekers’ expectations of and trust in general practice: a qualitative study. The British Journal of General Practice, 58, e1–e11. doi: 10.3399/bjgp08X376104.
 
26.
Ostrowska, A. (2007). Cancer of the Cervix. The problem of Medical, Social and Economic. Report of a symposium, Warsaw: IFIS SNS Sciences, Daily Health Care.
 
27.
Quan, H., Fong, A., De Coster, C., Wang, J., Musto, R., Noseworthy, T. W., & Ghali, W. A. (2006). Variation in health services utilization among ethnic populations. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 174, 787–791. doi: 10.1503/cmaj.050674.
 
28.
Ritchie, J., Spencer, L., & O’Connor, W. (2003). Carrying out qualitative analysis. Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers, 219–262.
 
29.
Rosenstock, I. M. (1974). Health Belief Model and preventive health behaviour. Health Education Monograph, 4, 354–386.
 
30.
Samolinski, B. (2012). The Polish perspective: Using innovative approaches to prevent cervical cancer. Retrieved from http://www.ehfg.org/intranet/a....
 
31.
Schleicher, E. (2007). Immigrant women and cervical cancer prevention in the United States. Baltimore: WomenLs and ChildrenLs Health Policy Center, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
 
32.
Torres, J. M., & Wallace, S. P. (2013). Migration circumstances, psychological distress, and self-rated physical health for Latino immigrants in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 103, 1619–1627.
 
33.
World Health Organisation. (2014a). Cancer Fact Sheet. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/mediacentre....
 
34.
World Health Organisation. (2014b). Comprehensive Cervical Cancer Control: A guide to essential practice. Second edition. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitst....
 
35.
World Health Organisation. (2014c). Early Detection of Cancer. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/cancer/dete....
 
36.
World Health Organisation. (2014d). Cancer Country Profiles. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/cancer/coun....
 
37.
World Health Organisation. (2014e). Cancer Country Profiles Malawi. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/cancer/coun....
 
38.
World Health Organisation. (2014f). Cancer Country Profiles on Poland. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/cancer/coun....
 
39.
World Health Organisation. (2010). Challenges facing Health of Migrants to be tackled at key meeting. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/hac/events/....
 
40.
Yep, G. A. (1993). HIV prevention among Asian-American college students: Does the health belief model work? Journal of American College Health, 41, 199–205.
 
Copyright: © Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk This is an Open Access journal, all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.
eISSN:2353-5571
ISSN:2353-4184
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top