Mexico City physicians' awareness about cervical cancer prevention: implications for cancer screening.

BACKGROUND: In spite of an early cancer detection program (CCSP), Mexico has a mortality rate for cervical cancer of 16.5 per 100,000 women. METHOD: A cross-sectional study of 330 physicians at the Mexico City General Hospital evaluated their knowledge of the CCSP, etiology, diagnostic alternatives, and treatment guidelines. Variance analysis was the statistical procedure used. Replies to a questionnaire about cervical cancer prevention awareness were scored on a scale from 1 to 9. RESULTS: According to the awareness scale, the global average classification was 4.4, with 50% of the physicians scoring 4 or less. There was no difference in the CCSP knowledge scores of gynecologists (mean 4.92, 95% CI 4.2-5.3), oncologists (mean 4.85, 95% CI 4.3-5.5), pathologists (mean 5.23, 95% CI 4.9-5.6), and those in other specialties (mean 4.29, 95% CI 4.2-5.0), p > 0.05. Many respondents attributed CCSP's lack of effectiveness to public apathy (68.12%). CONCLUSIONS: The effectiveness of the CCSP can be improved by educating health professionals if this education is combined with elimination of obstacles to its use. More information is needed to justify revising how doctors are educated in terms of not only quality of the training but also the contents of pre- and postgraduate training programs.

Evaluation model of the Mexican national program for early cervical cancer detection and proposals for a new approach.

INTRODUCTION: An evaluation model on cervical cancer (CC) prevention in Mexico was carried out during 1990-95, using three observation units: women at risk, screening providers, and use of health services. METHODS: A diagnostic procedure of the pitfalls was applied to the following steps of the screening procedure: Pap sampling quality, cytological diagnosis validity, compliance of women, and determinants of nonparticipation. RESULTS: The low effectiveness of screening for CC is due principally to factors associated with quality and coverage. Quality of Pap is deficient; 64 percent of a random sample of specimens lacked endocervical cells. Reading centers presented false negative indices between 10 and 54 percent. Women seek screening in a late stage of disease (55 percent with CC seek care because they have symptoms). In addition, coverage is low; in women between 15 and 49 years of age in Mexico City, 64.2 percent have a history of Pap smears, compared with 30 percent in rural areas. Knowledge of what the Pap is used for strongly determines use of screening. In rural areas, only 40 percent know the purpose of the Pap. CONCLUSIONS: This information justifies an intervention to reorganize CC screening in Mexico, through strategies for improving compliance, quality, follow-up, and treatment for abnormal screens.

[Perception of the quality of care in the health services in Mexico. perspective of the users]. / Percepción de la calidad de la atención de los servicios de salud en México: perspectiva de los usuarios.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the quality of health services as perceived by users in Mexico, as well as an analysis of predisposing and enabling factors to the use of these services. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data were selected from the National Health Survey II of 1994. The survey contains information from 3324 ambulatory health service users who sought care in the two week period previous to the survey. RESULTS: 81.2% of users perceived the quality as good and 18.8% thought it was poor. The main reasons for good quality of care were: personal attention (23.3%) improvement of the health problem (11.9%). For poor quality of care, the main reasons were: long waiting time (23.7%) and poor clinical examination (11.7%) Social security health service users perceived 2.6 times more frequently quality of attention as poor, than those who consulted private health services. Quality is represented by the aspects of the attention process (44.8% 9, its results (21.3%), the structure (18.0%) and accessibility (15.7%) The main reasons for not returning to the same health service center were: deficient attention (18.2%) and long waiting times (11.8%). CONCLUSIONS: The perspective of the population should be studied further and actions for the continuous improvement of the quality of health care should be implemented.

The cervical cancer screening program in Mexico: problems with access and coverage.

A cross-sectional study was carried out in two geographic regions of Mexico - Oaxaca (rural area) and Mexico City (urban area) - to determine the main factors for predicting participation in Cervical Cytology Screening Programs (CCSP), in populations with high mortality due to cervical cancer. We included 4,208 women aged between 15 and 49 years, randomly selected through a national household-sample frame. Knowledge of what the Pap test is used for strongly predisposes use of CCSP in Mexico City (odds ratio [OR] = 46.1, 95 percent confidence interval [CI] = 33.1-64.1) and Oaxaca state (OR = 61.5, CI = 42.0-89.9), as well as high socioeconomic level (Mexico: OR = 2.0, CI = 1.1-7.6; Oaxaca: OR = 4.1, CI = 3.1-5.3), high education level (Mexico: OR = 3.6, CI = 1.5-8.8; Oaxaca: OR = 5.3, CI = 2.8-10.0), and access to social security (Mexico: OR = 1.7, CI = 1.4-2.2; Oaxaca: OR = 2.2, CI = 1.8-2.7). Low coverage of the CCSP is confirmed as an important problem in Mexico.

Validity and reproducibility of cytologic diagnosis in a sample of cervical cancer screening centers in Mexico.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the diagnostic precision of the cervical cytology (smear) in a sample of 16 cervical cancer screening centers (CCSCs) from the Mexican Ministry of Health and Mexican Institute for Social Security CCSCs distributed across the country. STUDY DESIGN: Each center received a batch of 90 cytologic specimens with a random positive prevalence of 1.5-36%. Positive cases were always histologically confirmed. The "gold standard" was an expert pathologist certified by the Mexican Board of Pathology. RESULTS: Our results show that cytologic diagnosis validity and reproducibility vary greatly within and between institutions. The false negative rate (FNR) varied between 10% and 54%, independent of the prevalence of positive cases. CONCLUSION: Quality control of diagnostic precision is central to the consistency of results obtained at CCSCs. In Mexico the high FNR calls for governmental regulation of cytopathology policies and methods, such as through national and international accreditation of cytotechnology programs. In order to decrease the FNR, developing countries must frame managerial development strategies to streamline the cervical cancer screening program, including continuing education, improvement of operation processes in CCSCs, internal and external quality control of cytopathology laboratories and cervical sampling procedures, and standardization of diagnostic criteria.

Factors associated with Mexican women's familiarity with the purpose of the Pap test.

Use of health services is usually associated with a variety of factors, including the socioeconomic characteristics of the users, their familiarity with the usefulness of the services provided, and the acceptability and accessibility of those services. To study the factors associated with women's familiarity with the Pap test, a population-based study was carried out in Mexico City and two rural areas in the state of Oaxaca by means of household interviews. The sample consisted of 4208 women 15 to 49 years of age. Univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were done using unconditional logistic regression; the independent variables were access to social security health services, age, education, housing quality, and place of residence (urban or rural); the dependent variable was the interview subject's familiarity with the purpose of the Pap test. The results were expressed as odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. It was found that 41.5% of the women surveyed did not know the purpose of the Pap test, and that within this latter group, 97% had never had one. Factors found to be associated with not knowing the test's purpose were lack of access to the social security health services (OR = 1.9; 95% CI: 1.5-2.3); illiteracy (OR = 36.1; 95% CI: 17.9-72.7); and low socioeconomic level (OR = 2.9; 95% CI: 2.3-3.7). Also, rural dwellers had less familiarity with the Pap test than urban dwellers (OR = 0.5; 95% CI: 0.4-0.7). These results highlight the need to develop strategies for making the benefits of the Pap test known, bearing in mind the socioeconomic and cultural diversity of the populations involved.

[The coverage of health institutions in the state of Mexico. A comparative analysis of the insured and uninsured populations]. / Cobertura de las instituciones de salud en el Estado de México. Análisis comparativo entre la población asegurada y la no asegurada.

In this paper we report on a survey aimed at comparing utilization patterns and institutional coverage of health services between insured and non-insured populations. Our results show that under fixed socioeconomic characteristics, and for the same health problems, the non-insured group had a utilization rate 1.5 times smaller than that corresponding to the insured. Institutional coverage also showed important variations: only 31.8% of the group potentially served by the Secretary of Health (non-insured group) had actually demanded care, while the corresponding figure for the insured group (those with right to use the services provided by the diverse social security institutions) was 57.6%. On the other hand, private services utilization was 1.7 times higher for the non-insured population. These results point to the need for alternative and more equitable health care models in Mexico.

[Coverage of 4 health programs for pre-school children in marginal urban areas in Mexico City]. / Cobertura de 4 programas de salud para pre-escolares en áreas urbanas marginales de la ciudad de México.

The aim this paper was to evaluate the coverage provided by four preschool child health programs (vaccinations, oral hydration therapy, healthy child care and sick child care). To make coverage operational, we designed indicators to compare the utilization of each program with the condition or health problems considered as needed. These results are part of a broad evaluative research called "Coverage and Quality of Primary Health Care" (CQPHC) carried out by the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in the State of Mexico in 1988. The population under study was a random sample of the total of preschool children detected in the household survey. We only analyzed data including children from 1-4 years to ensure that all studied children had completed the basic vaccination schemes. For the vaccination program, we observed a coverage of 47.7%, twice as much as that of the oral hydration program that only reached was 21.9%, whereas that of the sick child care program was 63.8%, the former being 2.0 times less than the latter. We can conclude that the different coverage found for each program is basically due to the lack socialization of the concept of need and to the extent of participation of the concept to make these services available to the population.

[Potential coverage and real coverage of ambulatory health care services in the state of Mexico. The case of 3 marginal communities in Atenco and Chalco]. / Cobertura potencial y cobertura real de servicios ambulatorios de salud en el estado de México. El caso de tres comunidades marginadas en Atenco y Chalco.

Less than a third of the non-insured population studied through a sample in the State of Mexico was covered by the Institute of Health of the State of México. This low coverage was observed in spite the fact that health services were available within 2 kilometer radius. 33 per cent of the non-insured preferred to utilize other services within their own community, and 24 per cent of them traveled to bigger localities to receive care. These results suggest that to attain adequate coverage, utilization patterns should be investigated so that health services can meet the needs of the target population.