Cervical Cancer Knowledge and Awareness Gap among High-Risk Mizo Tribal Women: A Call for Educational Intervention

This study aims to evaluate the knowledge, attitudes, and associated factors related to cervical cancer (CC) among Mizo women. The primary objective was to contribute to the improvement of health policies and enhance public awareness regarding the risks and prevention associated with CC and HPV infection in a high-cancer-incidence region.

Mizo tribal women from diverse socio-demographic backgrounds were included in this study. All data analysis was carried out in IBM-SPSS version 26.0 involving descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, Spearman correlation, and binary logistic regression.

A total of 566 Mizo women were included with a mean age of 32.36 years. In the study, 48.6% of participants were unemployed, and about half had college degrees. Overall, the participants demonstrated poor knowledge of different questions related to CC. However, 94% of participants displayed positive with 76.5% expressing willingness to undergo CC screening. Participants' knowledge and attitudes towards CC were found to be influenced by different variables including age, marital status, family income, and educational attainment.

The study revealed that even though most of the participants have heard of CC, the overall poor knowledge of specific aspects of the disease was generally poor. This may be due to a lack of healthcare facilities, and an absence of awareness on the importance of preventive healthcare. This study emphasizes the need for targeted health policies, awareness campaigns, and educational interventions to improve knowledge and attitudes toward CC and HPV infection in Mizoram.