ArticleBMC women's health2024
Effectiveness of a culturally tailored text messaging program for promoting cervical cancer screening in accra, Ghana: a quasi-experimental trial.
Article in BMC women's health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trial
- Cervical Cancer Screening Prevalence and Predictors Among Women Aged 25-49 Years in Ghana: A Cross-Sectional Study.Health science reports · 2026Article
- Access to cervical cancer care in sub-Saharan Africa: a narrative review of barriers and opportunities.Frontiers in public health · 2026Review
- Telehealth Pathways for Cervical Cancer Prevention: A Scoping Review of Strategies to Close the Screening Gap.International journal of women's health · 2026Review
- Screening for cervical cancer among adult women: a self-reported nationwide study in Ghana.BMC women's health · 2025Article
- Evaluation of an intelligent digital platform for population management in cervical cancer screening.Cancer biology & medicine · 2025Observational
- AI and digital health for childhood cancer care in Ghana.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Interventions to Improve the Uptake of Cervical Cancer Screening with Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid: A Scoping Review.Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP · 2025Article
- Exploring perceived barriers and facilitators to using mobile phone technology for delivering HPV test results in malawi: a qualitative study with HPV-Screened women, healthcare providers, and health officials.BMC public health · 2025Article
- SMS reminders for monitoring tuberculosis treatment among women in Greater Accra region, Ghana.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionDespite breakthroughs in cervical cancer detection, resource-constrained countries continue to have a disproportionately high incidence and death rate. Mhealth has been identified as an important tool for increasing cervical cancer screening rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. We determined whether sending Ghanaian women culturally tailored one-way mobile phone SMS text messages about cervical cancer would encourage the uptake of the human papillomavirus (HPV) test.
methodsFrom August to November 2016, 88 women aged 18 to 39 living or working in an urban community (Accra, Ghana) participated in a quasi-experimental study. For 8 weeks, 32 SMS messages regarding cervical cancer were developed and sent to the personal phones of intervention arm participants (n = 42). Women in the control group (n = 46) received SMS texts with general health and lifestyle advice. Fischer's exact tests were performed to assess cervical cancer screening uptake and associated reasons for non-uptake between the intervention and control groups (p < 0.05).
resultsAt the baseline, women differed in terms of ethnicity and wealth. After the intervention, participants' self-reported risk factors for cervical cancer, such as early menarche, usual source of medical treatment, family history of cancer, smoking, and alcohol history, changed. None of the women in the intervention group sought cervical cancer screening after the intervention, but only one (2.2%) of the control arm participants did. Almost all the women (> 95%) agreed that an HPV test was essential and that regular healthcare check-ups could help prevent cervical cancer. Some women believed that avoiding particular foods could help prevent cervical cancer (23.8% intervention vs. 58.7% control, p < 0.001). Time constraints and out-of-pocket expenses were significant barriers to cervical cancer screening.
conclusionA one-way SMS delivered to urban women did not increase cervical cancer screening attendance. The time spent in screening facilities and the lack of coverage by the National Health Insurance Scheme limited screening uptake. We urge for the establishment of screening centers in all healthcare facilities, as well as the inclusion of cervical cancer screening in healthcare programs through cost-sharing.
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