Correlates of cervical cancer screening uptake among female under graduate students of Aksum University, College of Health Sciences, Tigray, Ethiopia

OBJECTIVES: Cervical cancer is among the leading cancer related causes of morbidity and mortality of women in the world. Ethiopia is among the highest risk countries with age adjusted incidence of cervical cancer 35.9 per 100,000 women or 7619 new cases and 6081 deaths of cervical cancer each year. The aim of this study was to examine correlates of cervical cancer screening uptake among female under graduate students of Aksum University, College of Health Sciences. Data was collected using self-administered structured questionnaire. Variables that were statistically significantly associated with the outcome in bivariate analyses were considered in a logistic multivariate regression analysis. RESULT: Only 17.2% of students were screened for cervical cancer in their lifetime. Both in bivariate and multivariate analysis, sexual experience (AOR = 38.85; 95% CI [8.907, 169.51]), marital status (AOR = 3.481; 95% CI [1.167, 10.380]), Ppace of birth (AOR = 3.359; 95% CI [1.559, 7.235]), and student's year of study (AOR = 0.005; 95% CI [0.001, 0.031]) were the only correlates of cervical cancer screening uptake among female students. Therefore, the overall cervical cancer screening uptake was low and further study should be done other correlates.