Women’s preference of specimen collection methods for human papillomavirus detection: A cross-sectional study of HIV-positive and HIV–negative women in Mombasa, Kenya.

Abstract

Self-collection of genital specimens for HPV detection may increase cervical cancer screening uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa. We hypothesized that women would prefer self-collection to clinician-collection of genital specimens. To assess this, and their preference between two different self-collection cytobrushes, 200 women were enrolled in a cross-sectional study in Mombasa, Kenya. Participants provided self-collected specimens using the Evalyn cytobrush (Rovers) and the Viba cytobrush (Rovers) stored in Aptima media (Hologic). A clinician also collected specimens. A post-examination questionnaire assessed preferences for the different methods of specimen collection. The majority of women preferred clinician-collection to self-collection (68% versus 32%, p<0.01). For self-collection, the Evalyn brush was preferred to the Viba brush (53% versus 27%, p<0.01). There was no association between preference for self-collection and preference for self-collection cytobrush. Further research to understand and address obstacles to self-collection may be needed to improve the uptake of this approach.