Introduction:

500,000 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed yearly, 80% of which belong to developing countries. The low incidence of this disease is related to implementation of early detection programs.

Objective:

To determine the sociodemographic and family variables associated with the knowledge and proper use of cervical cytology (CC) in female students from a University in Cartagena.

Materials and methods:

An analytical study was performed on 259 female students and female employees of a university. The data was collected using sociodemographic and family typology surveys together with questions assessing knowledge and use of CC.

Results:

42.3% (109) of participants belonged to nuclear families, followed by atypical families (29.5%; 67). 85.3% (221) have knowledge about cervical cytology and the main source of information being health institutions (22.4%; 57). 54.12% (140) of the female participants had a previous cytology, and 26.5% (67) did it annually. Their knowledge was associated with the perception of family functionality (OR 2.1245 (1.0338-4.3662).

Conclusions:

Perception of family dysfunction is an element that reduces the practice of cytology in the women studied, this decrease being more important among women from lower social strata and not being covered by health insurance.

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