A Thematic Analysis of Attitudes Toward Changes to Cervical Screening in Australia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: In December 2017, the Australian National Cervical Screening Program (NCSP) was changed to encompass a 5-yearly human papillomavirus (HPV) primary test for women aged 25 to 74 years. Public concerns about changes to screening programs has been demonstrated in other countries previously. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to explore in depth women's understanding of and concerns about the specific changes to the Australian NCSP implemented in December 2017. METHODS: A Web-based petition (Change.org) opposing the changes received over 70,000 signatures and nearly 20,000 comments from February to March 2017. Of 19,633 comments, a random sample of 10% (2000/19,633) were analyzed using content analysis (reported elsewhere). Comments relating directly to the specific changes to the program were further analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis. RESULTS: Around one-third (34.55%; 691/2000) of the total comments were related to concerns about specific changes to the program. The greatest concern was that screening intervals would be too long and that cancer may not be detected in time for successful treatment. Missing cancer in younger women (aged <25 years) was also an important concern, perceiving younger women to remain at significant risk. Notably, concern was rarely expressed about the new test (the HPV test). CONCLUSIONS: Gaps in knowledge and understanding about changes to the program and the rationale behind these have caused health concerns among women. Worry about the extended screening interval indicates little understanding of the slow progression of the HPV infection to cervical cancer or the high rates of regression. Identification of these knowledge gaps can inform both deintensification of other cancer screening programs and practitioners, so that they are able to address these concerns with their patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.034 | 0.062 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".