Training of health personnel to improve knowledge and skills in taking Pap: Effect of an educational intervention to prevent cervical cancer

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention to improve knowledge and skills in taking Pap smear conducted by health staff implementing the program on Early Detection of Cervical Cancer. Methods: A quasiexperimental, longitudinal and prospective study, held from October 25 2010 to April 11, 2011 at a hospital in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. To select groups applied a non-probabilistic convenience sampling that was composed of 28 people, 15 for the study group and 13 to the control group. The study group received training that was divided into three phases in which assessed the knowledge and skills taking the smear, the control group received conventional training offered by your workplace. Papanicolaou quality was measured before and after the intervention. The reference used international classification system Bethesda 2001. For data analysis we used the Student t test. Results: The study group increased knowledge (t = 8.768, p = 0.000) in the management of official standards, in the anatomy of the lower female genital tract and in the form of testing. Technical skills (t = 8.639, p = 0.000) also increased in the study group after the intervention. The control group showed no significant changes. The quality report of the samples in the study group increased from 60% to 86.7% and in the control group decreased from 92.3% to 84.6%. Conclusions: The training is effective in improving the knowledge and skills in taking Pap. Health staff who received the training improved their performance and showed more interest in providing high quality service to women.

Presence of Risk Factors and Co-Factors for Acquiring HPV Infection or Cervical Cancer in Women Living in a Rural Area and an Urban

Objective: Identify the presence of some risk factors and co-factors for acquiring HPV (human papilloma virus) or cervical cancer in women from a rural area and an urban area. Material and Methods: Cross-sectional study conducted in 2008 in the State of San Luis Potosí, México. Sampling of non-probabilistic convenience was applied. 99 women participated (73 from urban area and 26 rural). Two surveys were used to identify risk factors and socio-demographic data. All women underwent HPV testing;the samples were self-collected and processed by the Hybrid Capture II method?. To analyze the data, descriptive and inferential statistics were applied. Results: The predominant age range was 37 to 42 years. 38.5% is in a rural community and an urban 37.3%. 72.6% began their sexual life at 19 years or more in urban areas and 57.6% before 18 in rural areas. In relation to the number of sexual partners reported having had only one, 73.1% and 67.1% in rural and urban area respectively. Risk factors that were associated with HPV infection were the beginning of sexual activity at age 18 and under (p = 0.041) and the number of sexual partners (p = 0.001). Conclusions: There are more risk factors in women in urban areas but in rural areas it had the highest percentage of positive cases for infection by high-risk HPV.