Determinants of a GP visit and cervical cancer screening examination in Great Britain

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

April 5, 2017

Summary:

Objective: In the UK, women are requested to attend a cervical cancer test every 3 years as part of the NHS Cervical Screening Programme. This analysis compares the determinants of a cervical cancer screening examination with the determinants of a GP visit in the same year and investigates if cervical cancer screening participation is more likely for women who visit their GP. Methods: A recursive probit model was used to analyse the determinants of GP visits and cervical cancer screening examinations. GP visits were considered to be endogenous in the cervical cancer screening examination. The analysed sample consisted of 52,551 observations from 8,386 women of the British Household Panel Survey. Results: The analysis showed that a higher education level and a worsening self-perceived health status increased the probability of a GP visit, whereas smoking decreased the probability of a GP visit. GP visits enhanced the uptake of a cervical cancer screening examination in the same period. The only variables which had the same positive effect on both dependent variables were higher education and living with a partner. The probability of a cervical cancer screening examination increased also with previous cervical cancer screening examinations and being in the recommended age groups. All other variables had different results for the uptake of a GP visit or a cervical cancer screening examination. Conclusions: Most of the determinants of visiting a GP and cervical cancer screening examination differ from each other and a GP visit enhances the uptake of a smear test.

Published in

PLoS ONE

Volume

Volume: 12

DOI

http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174363

ISSN

19326203

Subjects

Notes

Open Access

Copyright: © 2017 Labeit, Peinemann. 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.

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