Factors associated with receiving Pap tests among married immigrant women of Vietnamese origin in southern Taiwan

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors associated with Pap testing among married immigrant women of Vietnamese origin residing in Taiwan, including demographics, knowledge of cervical cancer, knowledge of Pap tests, fatalism, attitudes toward cervical cancer, and barriers to receiving Pap tests. A cross-sectional correlational design was used. Data were collected from July 2012 to January 2013. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling in two communities in Southern Taiwan. A total of 451 married immigrant women of Vietnamese origin aged 30 years and over were invited to participate in the study and 427 participated. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression. Participants with no children were significantly less likely to have received a Pap test (odds ratio = 0.278, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.135-0.569); each additional point of knowledge about Pap tests increased the likelihood of having a Pap test by 19% (odds ratio = 1.190, 95% CI = 1.093-1.297), and each additional point in barriers to receiving Pap tests decreased the chances of having received a Pap test (odds ratio = 0.714, 95% CI = 0.637-0.800). The results can provide governments with a reference for developing policies for cervical cancer prevention among married immigrant Vietnamese women.

Keywords: Cervical cancer; Papanicolaou tests; Taiwan; immigrants; nurses.