Presentation and health care seeking behaviour of patients with cervical cancer seen at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret, Kenya.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the clinicopathological characteristics and health care seeking behaviour of cervical cancer patients seen at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH).

DESIGN: Prospective cross-sectional study.

SETTING: Gynaecology Unit, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), Eldoret, Kenya.

SUBJECTS: Forty-two consecutive cervical cancer patients seen at MTRH gynaecology unit between May 1998 and November 1999.

RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was 49.4 years (95% CI 45.4 to 53.3 years) range 24 to 80 years. All had been married and 42.9% had been in polygamous unions. Slightly more than seventy six per cent had had five or more confirmed pregnancies. Contraceptive everuse was 22%. The mean duration of clinical symptoms on presentation at MTRH was 8.2 months (95% CI 6.5 to 9.8 months) range 1 to 24 months. Female relatives and husbands were the first to be told about the symptoms by 90.3% of the patients and husbands alone by 48.8% of the patients. More than ninety per cent of patients sought health for the first time at a facility manned by trained health worker, with 39% visiting a dispensary or health centre first. More than 95% of patients had tumour stage 2 and above. Histopathologically, 80.9% of the tumours were squamous cell carcinoma, 11.9% were adenocarcinoma while the rest were anaplastic.

CONCLUSION: Patients with cervical cancer present late for treatment at MTRH. They are most likely to have discussed their illness with their female relatives and husbands and to have first visited peripheral facilities manned by trained healthcare workers. Interventions to improve health care seeking behaviour among cervical cancer patients need to include education of husbands in addition to increasing awareness of the disease among private medical practitioners and health workers at dispensary and health centre level.