Knowledge of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), HPV-vaccine and Pap Smear Among Adult Saudi Women

Background: Saudi Arabia has no screening program for cervical cancer (CC). Few studies have explored the level of knowledge among Saudi women regarding CC screening and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination against CC. We investigate the awareness and knowledge of HPV and its Pap smear screening tool among Saudi women of reproductive age.

Methods: This was a national online cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey of adult Saudi women. A snowball sampling technique was adopted used. The first section includes questions regarding the socio-demographic data of the participants. The second section inquired about the knowledge of the women regarding CC, PAP smear test, and HPV (11 questions). The third section inquired about practice of the women regarding the PAP smear test (3 questions).

Results: The study included 755 Saudi adult women; 64.5% heard of CC (69% from social media and the internet and 29.8% from healthcare workers. Only 21.2% showed adequate knowledge regarding CC, its vaccine, and Pap smear testing. Education and employment were associated with better knowledge. Most of the participants (81.1%) expressed a positive perception toward the importance of Pap smear, particularly higher educated women and women who got their information about CC from lectures or healthcare workers. Almost one-fifth of the participants (21.1%) reported performing of Pap smear and only 1.9% reported actual HPV vaccine uptake.

Conclusion: Overall, women's level of knowledge regarding CC, its prevention, and screening was adequate, and their attitude was positive. PAP smear and uptake of HPV vaccine was suboptimum.