Primary Care Providers' Views and Understanding of Current Recommended Guidelines for Cervical Cancer Screening

Study Summary

Significant developments have led to a dramatic change in recommendations for cervical cancer screening. The understanding that the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the cause of nearly 100% of cervical cancer cases and the development of new technologies for detection of HPV DNA at time of cervical cancer screening, has produced changes in preventive healthcare policy for this condition. In an unprecedented event, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended dramatic and unified changes in screening utilizing this new framework. No studies of significance have evaluated (since guideline change in 2013), whether primary care providers find the new recommendations authoritative and believe in them, or whether providers understand implementation of these new guidelines given the many decades of contradictory and differing recommendations. For this study, the opinions of primary care providers who care for patients in the 194 federally designated regions of Primary Care provider shortage within California will be studied. Using the California Medical Board database of licensed providers, a questionnaire will be mailed to a random subset. It is anticipated that the analysis will show varying contempt, confusion and compliance with new guidelines exists. Understanding these factors will have beneficial health policy implications in terms of overcoming barriers to these cost-effective, less intrusive, and more accurate health policy guidelines in the prevention and early detection of cervical cancer.

Primary Outcome

Questionnaire responses to clinical scenarios and assessments of current published clinical guidelines by ACOG, ACS or USPSTF

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Questionnaire