Improving Attitudes and Beliefs of Cervical Cancer Screening Guidelines: An Evidence-Based Quality Improvement Project

Cervical cancer, one of the most common gynecological cancers in the United States, is highly preventable due to the papanicoloau (Pap) test with human papillomavirus (HPV) co-screening. However, there is increasing evidence of low adherence to screening guidelines by health care providers (HCP). The purpose of this study was to identify and improve health care providers' attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge of the most updated screening guidelines and to provide them with an evidence-based educational intervention to increase their confidence in the updated guidelines, improve their attitudes and beliefs, and screen their patients more appropriately. Before being presented with an intervention consisting of an educational session that detailed the most recent U.S. Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) cervical cancer screening guidelines, the HCPs were surveyed for knowledge and at 2 months post-intervention, they were surveyed again. When the survey was scored pre- and post-intervention, two-thirds of the HCPs improved their score. An important barrier (67% post-intervention) to extending the interval included concerns about the patients losing contact with the medical system (50% at baseline). An educational intervention, including the updated screening guidelines, improved the HCPs' attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge of screening guidelines.