Paper Title
Womenin Cervical Cancer Prevention – Reasons And Self-Assessment Of Polish Population

Abstract
Cervical cancer for decades has become a serious epidemiological threat all over the world. Mortality among Poles is still one of the highest comparing with other European countries. Nonetheless, in Warmia and Mazury region, Poland,the mortality caused by cervical cancer is now higher than it was ten years ago. The aim of this research is to assess Poles’ willingness to take part in the preventive actions and indicate differentiatingfeatures for women’s participation in the cervical cancer prevention. The research was conducted on an anonymous questionnaire, survey on women being under National Health Services (Polish public medical authority, NFZ) supervision of Family Doctor in the Ostroda district clinics, Warmia and Mazury Region, Poland. Research material comes from 71 women whose participation was anonymous. Research material was statistically analyzed. Among the researched population, vast majority were women living in the urban area (66,2%). One third of the respondents has been living in the village (33,7%). From the given material comes out that a little over half of the researched population is not taking steps towards participation in the cervical cancer prevention (50,7%), while sometimes is not even willing to take any effort (4,2%). Everyday steps in order to prevent the cervical cancer spread is undertaken only by 22,5%. At most, preventive steps are undertaken by women at the age of 45 and more (32%), living in the urban areas, over 5 thousands habitants (69%), being married (88%), having children (94%), in a good financial situation, who regarded their incomes as sufficient for all of their current expenses (50%). Cervical cancer prevention is more often undertaken by women claiming alcohol abstinence (31%), not smoking tobacco (38%), whose physical activity is regular and compliant with health recommendations (44%). The more sexual partnerswoman had, the less willing to participate in cervical cancer prevention is she. The self-assessment on cervical cancer level of knowledge was established as higher among women with a positive attitude towards participating in cervical cancer prevention (69%). Cervical cancer prevention was acknowledged among women under the supervision of National Health Services gynecologist (50%), being satisfied with itsperformance (56%) and indicating a dissatisfaction with health services accessibility. In conclusion, Polish women rarely decide to participate in the cervical cancer prevention. The differentiating factors of the willingness to participate in the cervical cancer prevention for the researched group of Poles are the: sociodemographic status, cervical cancer prevention knowledge and the opinion on the health services accessibility. Women who admit taking cervical cancer preventive measures are mostly these who have children and whose health habits can be described as profitable. Number of sexual partners and marital status are the statistically relevant factors in terms of the willingness towards participation in cervical cancer prevention. Keywords: Cervical cancer, prevention, self-assessment, Poland, participation