Self-reports of Pap smear screening in women with physical disabilities.
Women with physical disabilities say they get Pap smears more often than the general public, but self-report can overstate the truth.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked women with physical disabilities if they had ever had a Pap smear.
They also asked about marriage, education, and how much the women knew about the test.
All answers came from phone and mail surveys in Taiwan.
What they found
Seven in ten women said they had been screened at least once.
Married women, women with mild disability, and women who knew more about the test were most likely to answer yes.
How this fits with other research
Wu et al. (2012) asked the same group about awareness instead of action. They found the same pattern: married, educated women knew more.
Son et al. (2013) warns that self-reports can be too rosy. They checked medical charts of women with intellectual disability and found many said “yes” when records said “no.”
Lim et al. (2016) and Mendonca et al. (2013) show the opposite trend for women with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Their screening rates sit below the general public, not above it. The gap is explained by disability type, not survey method.
Why it matters
If you serve adults with physical disabilities, treat marriage and knowledge as green lights for screening, not guarantees. Double-check self-report with clinic records, just as you would for any client history. Use the same light-touch survey tool to spot low-knowledge clients and pair them with simple picture instructions or a short video before the clinic visit.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We collected self reported rate of cervical smear testing and to examine the affecting factors in women with physical disabilities in the study, to define the reproductive health care for this group of people. The study population recruited 521 women with physical disabilities aged more than 15 years who were officially registered as having physical disabilities in Taipei County, Taiwan. Those people with physical disabilities include following: upper and low limb, spinal cord injury and other nervous system impairments. Results found that there were 71.5% participants had ever used the Pap smear tests in their life time and mean age of the first screening was 39.21±10.16 years (range=20-85 years). Nearly 41% of participants expressed that they had accepted the screening within 1 year and 28.1% reported they used the Pap smear screening regularly. Our study also found women with physical disabilities have higher use of Pap smear tests than does the general population in Taiwan (74% vs. 64% in aged≥30 years). Logistic regression model for the use of Pap smear test indicated that those married women (OR=12.06, 95% CI=6.85-21.22), with mild level of disability (OR=2.10, 95% CI=1.05-4.21) and high cognitive level toward Pap smear information were factors to affect the use of Pap smear in the study participants. We suggest the further study should conduct to examine the quality perception and follow-up service of Pap smear test for women with physical disabilities, to ensure the health care right for this group of women.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2011 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2011.01.002