Perdas de oportunidades na prevenção do câncer de colo uterino durante o pré-natal em município do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil / Loss of opportunities for the prevention of cancer of the cervix during prenatal care in city of the Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2008

RESUMO

One third of the cases of cervical carcinoma occur during the reproductive period and approximately 3% of the diagnoses are made during pregnancy. Current evidence indicates that pregnant women have a better chance of having early lesions diagnosed. Thus, pregnancy represents an excellent opportunity for the screening for this neoplasia, since gynecological examination is part of routine prenatal care. However, in practice this opportunity does not seem to be fully explored. The objective of the present study was to assess the knowledge of puerperae about the prevention of cervical carcinoma, to describe the characteristics associated with the lack of cytopathological examination during the last three years, and to compare the cytology coverage at the beginning and at the end of the prenatal care period. This was a cross-sectional evaluation performed in the city of Rio Grande-RS from May to June 2007. Sample size was calculated using the Epi-Info 6.04 software and corresponded to 224 puerperae. A structured and pre-coded questionnaire was applied to the puerperae during hospitalization. The data were entered in the Epi-Info 6.04 and crude analysis was performed using the SPSS software and multivariate analysis using Poisson regression and the Stata software. Of the 230 puerperae interviewed, 96.5% reported that they knew about the preventive exam for cancer of the uterine cervix. Nevertheless, the prevalence of cytopathological examination in the last 36 months was 32.6% at the beginning of pregnancy, reaching 55.2% during the puerperium, showing a positive association of prenatal care with cytopathological examination (p>0.001). Even so, 74 puerperae (32.2%) had never been submitted to cytopathological examination and 29 (12.6%) had out of date cytology. Crude analysis revealed that the group of puerperae aged 19 years or younger, non-white, with schooling of eight years or less, with a per capita income of less than one minimum wage, with the beginning of sex life at 15 years of age or less, with the beginning of prenatal care in the 2nd and 3rd trimester, who had received five visits or less and who had been followed up at the Unified Health System (SUS) differed in a statistically significant manner regarding a lower cytopathological examination coverage at the end of prenatal care. After adjusted analysis, the group seen at the University Hospital of Fundação Universidade Federal do Rio Grande FURG (95% CI: 0.18 0.82) and the puerperae aged 25 to 29 years (95% CI: 0.29 0.90) showed a significant association with better cytopathology coverage over the last three years. Thus, the present study demonstrated that, even though prenatal care improved the coverage of cytopathological examination, the local health service proved to be poorly effective since it covered fewer women than recommended, and unequal since access to the exam varied according to some characteristics of the users. In addition, the epidemiological criteria of risk for cervical carcinoma were not a priority for the providers of medical care. These results reveal the need to expand the coverage of cytopathological examination and to improve the quality of the prenatal medical care offered in Rio Grande. There is a need to motivate and qualify the health professionals regarding the importance of routine prenatal procedures since only the pregnant women seen at the University hospital of FURG received cytopathological coverage similar to that recommended by the WHO.

ASSUNTO(S)

avaliação da qualidade dos cuidados de saúde exame colpocitológico vaginal smears prevenção do câncer do colo uterino cervix neoplasms prevention assistência pré-natal quality assurance health care prenatal care health inequalities. desigualdades em saúde

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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