Routine cervical screening has been shown to greatly reduce both the number of new cervical cancers diagnosed each year and the number of deaths resulting from the disease. Nevertheless, cervical screening knowledge and screening uptake is very low in developing countries. In Ethiopia, the coverage of cervical cancer screening is only 1%. In this study, we aimed to assess cervical cancer screening knowledge and barriers for screening uptake among women in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted from February to March 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A total of 520 women were selected by a multi-stage sampling procedure. Interview based questioner was used to collect the data. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the socio-demographic and clinical profiles of the women. Multivariate logistic regression using adjusted odds ratio (AOR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to identify independent predictors for cervical screening knowledge. A p-value of <0.05 was set to determine level of statistical significance. Among all women, 42.7% had heard of cervical cancer screening and 144 (27.7%) women had adequate knowledge of cervical cancer screening. The mean (±SD) age of women was 27.7 (±5.49) years. In total, a quarter (25%) of eligible women had experience of cervical cancer screening. Not being married (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.8, 1.1–3.3), having an awareness of cervical cancer (AOR = 5.0, 2.7–9.1) and receiving information from health professionals (AOR = 1.9, 1.1–3.2) were the predictors for good cervical cancer screening knowledge. An absence of symptoms (57%), a lack of knowledge about screening (56.3%) and the lack of a screening service in their living area (42.2%) were the perceived barriers for screening uptake. Cervical screening knowledge was low among women and less than half had heard of screening. Women also had low experience of screening. The lack of a screening service, the absence of symptoms and not knowing about screening were the perceived reasons for the low uptake. Hence, awareness campaigns and education should be undertaken by health professionals. Access and availability of screening service is also essential to improve screening uptake.

Despite the increase in contraceptive use worldwide over the last decade, there is still discrepancy in the need to limit birth and utilization of modern contraceptives specifically long acting and permanent contraceptive methods in sub-Saharan Africa including Ethiopia. Intention to use long acting and permanent methods of contraception is an important indicator of the potential demand for family planning services.

Background: Early diagnosis is a key determinant of breast cancer prognosis and survival. More than half of breast cancer cases are diagnosed at an advanced stage in Ethiopia, and the barriers to early diagnosis in this country are not well understood. We aimed to identify the perceived barriers to early diagnosis of breast cancer from the perspective of patients and health care providers in south and southwestern Ethiopia. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted from March to April 2018 using in-depth interviews of breast cancer patients and breast cancer health care providers from six public hospitals located in urban and rural areas of south and southwestern Ethiopia. All participants provided verbal consent before participating. A thematic analysis was performed using Open Code 4.02. Results: Twelve breast cancer patients and thirteen health care providers were included in the study. Patient and health-system related barriers to early diagnosis of breast cancer were identified. Patient-related barriers were lack of knowledge and awareness of breast cancer, belief in traditional medicine and religious practices for treatment, and lack of social and financial support to seek care at a medical facility. Health-system related barriers were misdiagnosis of breast cancer, long distance to referral facilities, high cost of diagnostic services, long waiting time for diagnostic tests, and lack of screening and diagnostic tests in local facilities. Conclusions: Early diagnosis of breast cancer is affected by multiple barriers in south and southwestern Ethiopia. Awareness campaigns and education about the disease, prevention, and early detection are needed to increase early diagnosis of breast cancer. Opportunities exist to improve early diagnosis and timely treatment in rural areas.

Screening rate for cervical cancer among HIV‐infected women and among women overall is low in Ethiopia despite the high burden of the disease and HIV infection, which increases cervical cancer risk. In this paper, we assessed knowledge about cervical cancer symptoms, prevention, early detection, and treatment and barriers to screening among HIV‐positive women attending community health centers for HIV‐infection management in Addis Ababa. A cross‐sectional survey of 581 HIV‐positive women aged 21–64 years old attending 14 randomly selected community health centers without cervical cancer screening service in Addis Ababa. We used univariate analysis to calculate summary statistics for each variable considered in the analysis, binary logistic regression analysis to measure the degree of association between dependent and independent variables, and multiple regressions for covariate adjusted associations. Statistical significance for all tests was set at P < 0.05. We used thematic analysis to describe the qualitative data. Of the 581 women enrolled in the study with mean age 34.9 ± 7.7 years, 57.8% of participants had heard of cervical cancer and 23.4% were knowledgeable about the symptoms, prevention, early detection, and treatment of the disease. In multivariate analysis, higher educational attainment and employment were significantly associated with good knowledge about cervical cancer. In addition, only 10.8% of the participants ever had screening and 17% ever received recommendation for it. However, 86.2% of them were willing to be screened if free of cost. Knowledge about cervical cancer is poor and cervical cancer screening rate and provider recommendation are low among HIV‐positive women attending community health centers for management and follow‐up of their disease in Addis Ababa. These findings underscore the need to scale up health education about cervical cancer prevention and early detection among HIV‐positive women as well as among primary healthcare providers in the city.

Repeated induced abortion is important public health concern both in the developing and developed world that increases maternal morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study was to determine the magnitude and associated factors of repeated induced abortion among abortion care service seekers at Marie Stopes International Ethiopia clinics in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A cross sectional study was conducted among 429 women seeking abortion care at Marie Stopes International Ethiopia clinics. Simple random sampling technique was used to select study participants. Data were collected by trained data collectors using pretested structured questionnaires. Data were checked for completeness, consistency, coded and entered and analyzed through SPSS version 20. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was computed to test the strength of association and the p-value < 0.05 was considered as statistical significant. The magnitude of repeat induced abortion was 33.6%. Based on this study age groups 20–24 years (AOR = 1.2; CI: 1.1–2.3), 25–29 years (AOR = 5.4; CI: 3.1–6.2) and 30–34 years (AOR = 1.1; CI: 1.02–2.6); respondents with the educational level of primary (AOR = 0.2; CI: 0.070.6), secondary (AOR = 0.4; CI: 0.2–0.8) and college diploma and above (AOR = 0.4; CI: 0.2–0.6); those with the monthly income of 1001–2000 Ethiopian birr (AOR = 4.2; CI: 1.8–9.4) and 2001–3000 Ethiopian birr (AOR = 0.3; CI: 0.2–0.9); those with years in marriage with 1–2 years (AOR = 2.4; CI: 1.2–4.9) and those with last time of abortions of 1–2 years, 2–3 years and above 3 years, (AOR = 0.2; CI: 0.1–0.5), (AOR = 0.1; CI: 0.05–0.4), (AOR = 0.4; CI: 0.2–0.9), respectively were found to be significantly associated with repeat induced abortions. The magnitude of repeat induced abortion is similar with the reports from developing countries but it was lower than that of developed countries. Age group (20–24, 25–29 and 30–34 were positively associated with repeat induced abortion), educational level (primary, secondary and collage diploma and above were negatively associated with repeat induced abortion), monthly income (earn 1001–2000 Ethiopian birr were positively where as monthly income between 2001 and 3000 Ethiopian birr negatively associated), years in marriage (1–2 years was negatively associated) and time of last abortion (1–2 years, 2-3 years and above the three years were negatively associated) were the associated factors for repeat induced abortion. Health promotion messages are needed to focus to improve the knowledge of women about contraceptives as a primary prevention of repeated induced abortion.