Abstract

STUDY OF LITERACY, SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS & CLINICAL PRESENTATION AS RISK FACTORS IN CARCINOMA CERVIX

Amit Agrawal* and Sushreesmita Mohanty

Abstract

Background: cancer cervix is one of the common cancer of female genital tract and one of the major cause of mortality. High Prevalence of cancer cervix in india can be explained by lack of awareness for health care. Low literacy and poor socioeconomic class are major factor contributing to this. Symptoms of cancer cervix can be irregular bleeding during cycles, white discharge per vagina, post coital bleeding, intermenstrual bleeding. lack of knowledge regarding these symptoms in lower socioeconomic class due to poor literacy which can lead to delayed diagnosis of disease in advanced state. These are the factors increasing mortality rate in cancer cervix, if health care provider can identify these high risk women and counsel them for seeking medical care making health facilities available to them, cancer cervix can be diagnosed in pre invasive stage. Materials and methods: Study of literacy rate, socioeconomic status, different presenting symptoms, as a risk factors in carcinoma cervix were carried out from patients attending to O & g opd in Hi-Tech medical college and hospitals, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India during the period from January 2014 to January 2015. Result: the study was conducted on 100 cases in HI- Tech medical & hospital with features of unhealthy cervix and results analysed. Conclusions: In this study different risk factors like literacy rate, socioeconomic status, presenting symptoms have been studied and results analysed.

Keywords: Unhealthy cervix, literacy, socioeconomic status, clinical presentation.