Câncer de colo uterino entre mulheres presidiárias: um estudo sobre as ações de combate e prevenção.

Abstract

In the face of the great incidence of cervical cancer as well as the understanding that women prisoners could represent a risk group which enables its occurrence, taking into account characteristics of this population and the fact that they are particularly vulnerable as they don't receive government aid to prevent this disease, we decided to conduct this study whose objective is to identify how female inmates in the backlands of Paraiba deals with this issue. This study aims to investigate the level of knowledge and the preventive and combative actions on this sort of cancer within the target population, as well as to delineate a demographic, sexual and reproductive profile of these women; identifying the amount of women who performed the Papanicolaou test, the interval between examinations and also to verify where these tests are performed, the results and proper treatment. A quantitative, crosssectional study with field research was carried out at the State Detention Center in the municipality of Cajazeiras - PB, totalizing 34 women. Data collection occurred in the month of April 2013. Data were compiled and analyzed using the statistic program Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17, presented through charts, using the basic statistic package as frequency, percentage, average, mean, maximum, minimum and standard deviation followed by studies using the adequate literature. Data showed that most of the women were young, dark-skinned and had not finished primary school. Their sexual history showed that they started sexual life precociously, multiparity and multiplicity of sexual partners. Levels of knowledge on cancer highlight that 64,7% knew very little about it, 61,8% did not know its preventive mechanisms and 88,2% performed the Papanicolaou test as a preventive measure, revealing shallowness and even inefficiency of the information on this disease. 85,1% of the participants performed these tests out of prison. A worrying fact about the Papanicolaou test is the large interval between them, 88% of the group only performs the test every 4 years. Therefore, we conclude that the study group is at risk of developing this disease, due to the population predisponent factors and also to the lack of proper combative actions on the war on cervical cancer. It is necessary greater efforts of health professionals and competent agencies in order to improve health services specially the ones related to the prevention of cancer within the study population so that this reality could change.