Factors affecting cervical screening uptake in prisoners

Imprisoned women are at increased risk of cervical cancer but less likely to have been screened for this disease. There is very little information on the situation in prisons in the UK but this study indicates that, as anticipated, these women are less likely to have been screened in the last five years than women generally. Whilst there are no ethnic differences, it appears that women who had been in prison longer than three months were more likely to have had a smear in the last five years compared with those who had been in for three months or less (79.2% vs 37.5%, Chi-squared=9.7, p=0.002) suggesting that the prison health services had been able to use this opportunity to screen this disadvantaged population.