Involving men in cervical cancer prevention; a qualitative enquiry into male perspectives on screening and HPV vaccination in Mid-Western Uganda

Marlieke de Fouw; Yaël Stroeken; Ben Niwagaba; Mwalimu Musheshe; John Tusiime; Isingoma Sadayo; Ria Reis; Alexander Arnold Willem Peters; Jogchum Jan Beltman

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0280052

Involving men in cervical cancer prevention; a qualitative enquiry into male perspectives on screening and HPV vaccination in Mid-Western Uganda

PLoS One. 2023 Jan 27;18(1):e0280052. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280052. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Gynaecology, Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands.
² Department of Technologies for Rural Transformation, African Rural University, Kagadi, Uganda.
³ Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁵ Children's Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.

Abstract

Introduction: Evidence-based preventive strategies for cervical cancer in low-resource setting have been developed, but implementation is challenged, and uptake remains low. Women and girls experience social and economic barriers to attend screening and human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programs. Male support has been proven successful in uptake of other reproductive healthcare services. This qualitative study with focus groups aimed to understand the perspectives of males on cervical cancer screening and HPV vaccination in Western-Uganda This knowledge could be integrated into awareness activities to increase the attendance of cervical cancer screening and HPV vaccination programs.

Materials and methods: Focus group discussions were conducted with men aged 25 to 60 years, who were married and/or had daughters, in Kagadi district, Mid-Western Uganda. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analyzed using an inductive approach.

Results: Eleven focus group discussions were conducted with 67 men. Men were willing to support their wives for screening and their daughters for HPV vaccination. Misperceptions such as family planning and poor personal hygiene leading to cervical cancer, and misperception of the preventative aspect of screening and vaccination were common. Women with cervical cancer suffer from stigmatization and family problems due to loss of fertility, less marital sexual activity, domestic violence and decreased economic productivity.

Conclusions: Ugandan men were willing to support cervical cancer prevention for their wives and daughters after being informed about cervical cancer. Limited knowledge among men about the risk factors and causes of cervical cancer, and about the preventative aspect of HPV vaccination and screening and their respective target groups, can limit uptake of both services. Screening and vaccination programs should actively involve men in creating awareness to increase uptake and acceptance of prevention.

Copyright: © 2023 de Fouw et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Early Detection of Cancer
Female
Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
Humans
Male
Papillomavirus Infections*
Papillomavirus Vaccines*
Patient Acceptance of Health Care
Uganda
Uterine Cervical Neoplasms* / diagnosis
Uterine Cervical Neoplasms* / prevention & control
Vaccination

Substances

Papillomavirus Vaccines

Grants and funding

This research was supported by funding of Dioraphte Foundation (https://www.dioraphte.nl/), a non-commercial foundation from The Netherlands, granted to MF and JB via the Female Cancer Foundation (https://www.femalecancerfoundation.org/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.