Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) to Assess the Acceptability of Self-Sampling for HPV a (2012)
Undergraduate: Hira Shabbir
Faculty Advisor: Patricia Basta
Department: Biology
Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of death in developing countries and is the primary cause of mortality among Haitian women. Globally, Haitian women bear a disproportionate burden of cervical cancer incidence and mortality. Many factors contribute to this disparity, including limited access to health care resources, low levels of health literacy, and low socio-economic status. These barriers inhibit Haitian women from accessing preventive screening, such as routine Pap smears to test for the Human Papilloma virus (HPV), the primary cause of cervical cancer. Self-sampling devices may serve as a viable and accessible alternative to in-clinic Pap smear testing and can successfully detect the presence of HPV, thus leading to the early detection of cervical cancer. This study aims to assess the acceptability of self-sampling devices as a possible alternative to the Pap smear among women in rural Haiti. Under the facilitation of Zanmi Lasante/Partners in Health, community health workers (CHWs) recruited 493 women 18 years and older with no prior history of cervical cancer. Women were approached at their homes and instructed by the CHWs on how to use the self-sampling device. They were also asked to answer a series of questions about their experience using the HPV self-sampling device. The vast majority of participants (97.4%) were either comfortable or very comfortable using the cervical self-sampler at home and most (99.4%) would recommend it to friends or family members. A large proportion (78.7%) of participants would prefer to use the self-sampler at home as opposed to the in-clinic test (82.6%). The facilitation of this project through the CHW network helped overcome many of the barriers involved with accessing preventive cancer screening, including the general distrust of the formal healthcare system. In addition, the high level of acceptability indicates that self-sampling has the potential to serve as a feasible alternative to the Pap smear for HPV det