Beliefs about cervical cancer and Pap test: a new Chilean questionnaire

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire to examine women's beliefs about cervical cancer and the Pap test in Chilean women.

The questionnaire, developed following the guidelines by Robert de Vellis, is based on the Health Belief Model. The content validity index was 0.93 upon review by 10 Chilean experts. A cross-sectional design was implemented to validate the questionnaire. The sample included 333 women recruited from a women's healthcare center in Santiago, Chile. Exploratory factor analysis was used to evaluate validity and coefficient α to evaluate reliability.

After six models were computed, the questionnaire was reduced from 53 to 28 items. The new questionnaire, CPC-28 (in Spanish, Creencias, Papanicolaou, Cancer -28), includes six domains: the barriers domain to take a Pap test, the cues to action domain, the severity domain, the need to have a Pap test domain, the susceptibility to cervical cancer domain, and the benefit domain. The unexpected salient factor "need to have a Pap test" was found as part of the susceptibility domain proposed in the initial questionnaire. This finding is an important topic for future research. The CPC-28 questionnaire explained 49% of the total variance, and the reliability was .735.

It was concluded that the CPC-28 questionnaire will have important implications on research, education, and administration across disciplines.

Nursing curricula and healthcare providers must stress the importance and reinforce the importance of prevention of cervical cancer and regular Pap test screenings.