Attitudes towards HPV testing: a qualitative study of beliefs among Indian, Pakistani, African-Caribbean and white British women in the UK.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	McCaffery, K Forrest, S Waller, J Desai, M Szarewski, A Wardle, J
Copyright Year	2003
Abstract	This study examined attitudes to human papillomavirus (HPV) testing among a purposively selected sample of women from four ethnic groups: white British, African Caribbean, Pakistani and Indian. The design was qualitative, using focus group discussion to elicit women's attitudes towards HPV testing in the context of cervical cancer prevention. The findings indicate that although some women welcomed the possible introduction of HPV testing, they were not fully aware of the sexually transmitted nature of cervical cancer and expressed anxiety, confusion and stigma about HPV as a sexually transmitted infection. The term ‘wart virus’, often used by medical professionals to describe high-risk HPV to women, appeared to exacerbate stigma and confusion. Testing positive for HPV raised concerns about women's sexual relationships in terms of trust, fidelity, blame and protection, particularly for women in long-term monogamous relationships. Participation in HPV testing also had the potential to communicate messages of distrust, infidelity and promiscuity to women's partners, family and community. Concern about the current lack of available information about HPV was clearly expressed and public education about HPV was seen as necessary for the whole community, not only women. The management of HPV within cervical screening raises important questions about informed participation. Our findings suggest that HPV testing has the potential to cause psychosocial harm to women and their partners and families.
ISSN	00070920
Journal	British Journal of Cancer
Volume Number	88
PubMed Central reference number	PMC2376794
Issue Number	1
PubMed reference number	12556957
e-ISSN	15321827
DOI	10.1038/sj.bjc.6600686
Language	English
Publisher	Nature Publishing Group
Publisher Date	2003-01-01
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material.If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Copyright © 2003 Cancer Research UK
Subject Keyword	HPV testing psychosocial impact cervical screening
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Cancer Research Oncology