Abstract:
Background: Cervical cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer incidence and mortality in women worldwide. Almost all cervical cancer (99%) is linked to infection with high-risk human papilloma viruses (HPV). Despite the wide recognition of the disease and its’ serious public health problem in developing countries including Ethiopia, associated factors for precancerous cervical lesion is not well identified and documented.
Objective: To assess the prevalence of precancerous cervical lesion and its associated factors among women visited Jimma university medical center gynecology and obstetrics department
Methods: An institution-based retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted from October 15-30. A total of 190 randomly selected medical records of women of reproductive age group that came to gynecology and obstetrics department of JUMC for screening from September 2017 to August 2021 was reviewed. Data were collected using a data extraction checklist from medical records by trained data collectors. Data was entered into Epi Data version 3.1 and analyzed by SPSS version 26. Descriptive statistics like frequency, percentage and proportion was computed to describe the study population. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the associated factors for precancerous cervical lesions. Adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval and p-value <0.05 was used to determine the level of significant association.
Results: Out the total of 190 screened women of reproductive age group, the majority, 97.4 % of them were never screened for precancerous cervical lesion before. The prevalence of precancerous cervical lesion was found to be 6.84% (95 %CI=3.7-11.4). After controlling the effect of other confounding variables, age of the participant (AOR= 5.43:95%CI:1.02,28.82), educational status (AOR=8.84:95%CI: 1.03-75.05) and previous history of sexually transmitted infections (AOR=7.71:95%CI:1.53-38.89) were found to be significantly associated with precancerous cervical lesion at p-value <0.05.
Conclusion and recommendation: This study confirmed that age of the participant, educational status, and previous history of STIs were found to be significantly associated with precancerous cervical lesion. Thus, women aged >35 years, primary and below education, a history of STIs, and those with a higher risk of precancerous lesions should be encouraged to be screened frequently for cervical cancer. Appropriate community mobilization, campaigns, and education programs need to be employed for creation of awareness about precancerous cervical lesion at the study area
