Attitudes and behavior of the public regarding cervical cytology: current findings and new directions for research.

IN DISCUSSING problems concerned with inducing women to avail themselves of presymptomatic cervical cytology, focus will be on three topics: (1) what is known or thought to be known about the attitudes and behaviour of the population regarding screening for cervical cancer; (2) what problems there are in interpreting these data, and (3) what kinds of research need be done in order to understand better the relationship between attitudes and health behavior generally, especially as this has relevance to cervical cytology. I will exemplify this third point by discussing a research program currently in its planning stage with a first project on cervical cytology scheduled to go into the field within the next month. Attitudes, beliefs, and behavior in regard to cancer in general, especially the voluminous material known under the general title of “delay” in visiting physicians with symptoms of cancer, has been analyzed quite completely in papers by KUTNER et al, [l], by GOLDSEN et al. [2], and by HENDERSON et al. [3] and need not be reviewed here.