The Impact of Decision Aid on the Stages of Change in the Behavior of Cervical Cancer Screening in Women: An Experimental Study

Abstract

Abstract Introduction: Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women at the world and is the seventh most common cancer in women. Despite the availability of cervical cancer screening methods, women are less receptive to these possibilities. factors such as the level of knowledge about the risk of disease and the beliefs and attitudes of individuals, and especially perceived barriers to cervical cancer screening are effective in adopting screening behaviors, so we decided to study this study with the aim of impact. Make decision-based counseling on cervical cancer screening behaviors in women.

Methods: The experimental study was performed on 154 women aged between 21 to 65 years who did not have a history of Pap smear test during the past three years. This study was performed by simple random sampling and random assignment to the intervention and control groups. Data were collected by interview using demographic questionnaires of social and midwifery, shared decision making, decision conflict, decision regret and self-efficacy in cervical cancer and checklist of stages of change before and 4 weeks after the intervention and analyzed by SPSS24 software, Independent t-test, ANCOVA and logistic regression were used.

Results In this study, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic and obstetric characteristics (p> 0/05). During 4 weeks after the intervention, a significant difference was observed between the two groups in terms of changing the stages of behavior, so that after the intervention, the frequency of people who entered the operation stage or intended to have a Pap smear was more than the control group (p = 0/001). The mean score of shared decision making in the intervention group was 45/49 (1/18) significantly higher than the control group 27/56 (1/18) (p = 0/001). The mean score of decision conflict in the intervention group 29/16 (1/09) was significantly lower than the control group 34/14 (1/09) (p = 0/002). The mean score of the decision regret in the intervention group 10/85 (0/27) was significantly lower than the control group 14/32 (0/27) (p = 0/001). The mean score of the decision self-efficacy in the intervention group 25/02(0/49) was significantly higher than the control group 23/41(0/49) (p = 0/024). Conclusion: Decision-based counseling led to improvement of women's shared decision-making and self-efficacy, and reduced conflict and regret about cervical cancer screening decisions, resulting in informed decision-making for screening. Therefore, it is suggested that counseling based on decision support should be used in health care centers along with educational programs to raise awareness among women in various dimensions related to cervical cancer