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Attendance to cervical cancer screening among Roma and non-Roma women living in North-Western region of Romania

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Public Health

A Correction to this article was published on 14 June 2019

This article has been updated

Abstract

Objectives

Romania has Europe’s highest incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer. Participation in the national cervical cancer-screening programme is low, especially among minority Roma women.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional study, using a structured questionnaire aiming to quantify reasons for screening attendance among women in North-Western region of Romania.

Results

980 women were enrolled in this study. Data were analysed using logistic regression, estimating odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). This study revealed that Roma women (46%) attended screening less frequently that non-Roma women (63%),; however, ethnicity in itself was not associated with screening attendance. Instead we found that attendance to the cervical cancer screening programme was determined by having ever heard about a screening opportunity (OR 5.90, 95% CI 3.76−9.27) and having three or more sex partners (OR 5.99, 95% CI 1.71–21.04).

Conclusions

We concluded that information about the screening programme’s existence and its rationale does not reach the women targeted for screening sufficiently and argue that a process of user involvement aiming to build contact, interaction and cooperation between the programme and its potential participants is warranted.

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Change history

  • 14 June 2019

    Romania has Europe���s highest incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer. Participation in the national cervical cancer-screening programme is low, especially among minority Roma women.

  • 14 June 2019

    Romania has Europe���s highest incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer. Participation in the national cervical cancer-screening programme is low, especially among minority Roma women.

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Acknowledgements

This study was conducted as part of CerCcRom project (Cervical Cancer among Roma and other disadvantage groups of women in Romania) with funding from the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial Mechanism 2009–2014 under Project Contract no 6SEE/30.06.2014. We thank the Romanian Cancer Society, the Oncology Institute “Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuta” of Cluj-Napoca, Romania and the Cancer Registry of Norway, for making this study possible. We also thank all the data collectors for their contribution with and in the questionnaire meetings. Most of all we thank all the women who took part in the study.

Funding

This study was conducted as part of CerCcRom project (Cervical Cancer among Roma and other disadvantage groups of women in Romania) with funding from the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial Mechanism 2009–2014 under Project Contract no 6SEE/30.06.2014.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cancer Registry of Norway, Institute of Population-Based Cancer Research, Majorstuen, Post-box 5213, 0304, Oslo, Norway

    Trude Andreassen, Giske Ursin & Elisabete Weiderpass

  2. Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Trude Andreassen & Giske Ursin

  3. The Romanian Cancer Society, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Adriana Melnic

  4. Folkhälsan Research Center, Genetic Epidemiology Group, Helsinki, Finland

    Rejane Figueiredo & Elisabete Weiderpass

  5. Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Trude Andreassen & Kåre Moen

  6. University of Medicine and Pharmacy, “Iuliu Haţieganu”, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Ofelia Şuteu

  7. Institute of Oncology “Prof. Dr. Ion Chiricuţă” Cluj-Napoca (IOCN), Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Ofelia Şuteu & Florian Nicula

  8. Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Giske Ursin

  9. Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Tromsø, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Elisabete Weiderpass

  10. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Elisabete Weiderpass

Authors
  1. Trude Andreassen
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  2. Adriana Melnic
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  3. Rejane Figueiredo
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  4. Kåre Moen
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  5. Ofelia Şuteu
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  6. Florian Nicula
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  7. Giske Ursin
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  8. Elisabete Weiderpass
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Trude Andreassen.

Ethics declarations

This study was funded by the European Economic Area (EEA) Financial Mechanism 2009–2014 under Project Contract no 6SEE/30.06.2014. All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Andreassen, T., Melnic, A., Figueiredo, R. et al. Attendance to cervical cancer screening among Roma and non-Roma women living in North-Western region of Romania. Int J Public Health 63, 609–619 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-018-1107-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-018-1107-5

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