Results
Forty-six women participated in the study; their primary
characteristics are found in Table 1. As can be seen, no
significant differences exist between the two groups of
participants, except for the variable occupation. It is worth
mentioning that the majority of the participants have only
an elementary level education and only 28 % have social
security. Standing out with respect to utilization is that
61 % of the 31 women who mentioned having undergone a
Pap at least once indicated they had requested the test,
although very few did it with knowledge of the recommended
frequency.
The results obtained from the self-efficacy scale are
summarized in Table 2, where significant differences can
be seen among three items. Although two of these were
shown to have decreased after the intervention, when taking
into account the global score for the scale, the intervention
group’s score increased 0.24 units while the control
group’s self-efficacy decreased 0.07 points; a statistically
significant difference (p = 0.05, Student’s t test).
With regard to the barriers to undergoing a Pap, it is
notable that women reported fewer barriers at the individual
level than the community level. In fact, they projected
an even more positive scenario, that is, most
mentioned not facing any barriers personally, and only
secondarily identified the lack of time and embarrassment
as possible limitations. Nevertheless, when asking questions
about the cultural domain of this group, participants
referred to the lack of time, test conditions (such as the size
and temperature of the speculum and how it is inserted, or
being checked by several persons at the same time doctor,
nurse and/or interns) and the fear of social criticism/
rejection (being identified as sick or engaging in promiscuous
sexual conduct) as barriers women face when
undergoing a Pap. In addition, when questioning at the
individual level but not personally (that is, barriers that
‘‘other women’’ face), the participants continued to identify
embarrassment as an important limitation. With regard to
facilitators for undergoing a Pap, the cultural domain and
individual opinion both indicated having more information
about the test and that the professional who performs it be a
woman (Smith’s index of relevance for these data remained
virtually the same for both measurements, therefore the
difference is not seen in Fig. 1). It is worth mentioning
that, individually, the women also consider that having the