By Pheena Kenny, Public Health Strategy and Development Manager, National Screening Service
We’ve created new resources that enable healthcare staff to support women attending colposcopy to:
- understand the link between smoking, HPV and cervical cancer
- access stop smoking services, if they choose to.
We worked with the Nurses in Colposcopy Clinics in Ireland Association, Tobacco Free Ireland and UCC School of Public Health to create our resources.
Why we did the project
HPV (the human papillomavirus) is the cause of most cervical cancers. Most people will get HPV at some stage in their lives. For most people, the immune system will clear the virus naturally from the body within one to two years. For some people, the virus will remain active.
Smoking increases the risk of having an active HPV infection. This can lead to harmful health outcomes such as cell abnormalities in the cervix and cervical cancer.
Colposcopy clinics are a suitable setting for brief interventions about smoking. About 4 in 10 women who attend colposcopy clinics in Ireland are smokers.
Our project aimed to provide resources and supports to women who are smokers so that they can better understand:
- the relationship between smoking, HPV and cervical cancer
- the benefits of quitting smoking.
It also aimed to provide supports to staff in colposcopy clinics to enable them to actively practice their intervention skills and refer women to stop smoking services.
How we did it
- We conducted a review on the link between smoking and HPV and of stop smoking interventions and their effectiveness in colposcopy clinics.
- We surveyed staff in colposcopy clinics to better understand practices, needs, gaps and opportunities about referrals to stop smoking services for women who attend colposcopy.
What we learned
Referrals to stop smoking services could be improved by the following:
- specific information on HPV, smoking and cervical cancer for staff
- education materials for patients
- use of an e-referral system to quit smoking services
- feedback from services following referrals to quit smoking services.
What we did next
We worked with our partners to co-produce these new resources:
- Smoking and its link to HPV and cervical cancer: Information for colposcopy staff
- Information on smoking, HPV and cervical cancer for patients
- Checklist - stop smoking interventions in colposcopy
- Colposcopy patient QUIT smoking pathway
Next steps
The new resources have been shared with colposcopy clinics nationally. The HSE Quit team are available to support colposcopy clinics to make e-referrals to stop smoking services. Details about how e-referrals can be made have been communicated to colposcopy clinics by our CervicalCheck team.
Hard copies of the information leaflet for patients can be ordered at healthpromotion.ie