Prevalence and Factors Associated with Abnormal Cervical Cell among the Hmong and Mien Hill Tribe Women in Pha Yao Province, Thailand

Objective: To estimate the prevalence and to determine factor associated with abnormal cervical cell among the Hmong and Mien hill tribe women. Methods: A cross-sectional study aimed to estimate the prevalence and to determine the factors associated with abnormal cervical cell among the Hmong and Mien hill tribe women living in Pha Yao province, Thailand was conducted. The data from validated questionnaires and Papanicolaou (Pap) smear test results were collected. Logistic regression was used to detect the associations between variables and abnormal cervical cell at the significant level of alpha = 0.05. Results: Totally, 450 Hmong and Mien women were recruited into the analysis. The overall prevalence of abnormal cervical cell was 2.2%; 1.2% were atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US), 0.4% were atypical squamous cells-cannot exclude HSIL (ASC-H), 0.4% were cervical intraepithelium neoplasia-I (CIN-I) and 0.2% were cervical intraepithelium neoplasia-II (CIN-II). Two variables, the number of their sexual partners and the number of husbands’ sexual partners, were significantly associated with abnormal cervical cell. The women who had ≥ 4 sexual partners had a 7.09 times (95%CI=1.85-27.17) more likely to have abnormal cervical cell than those who had < 4 sexual partners. The women whose husbands had ≥ 4 partners had a 5.63 times (95%CI=1.51-20.90) more likely to have abnormal cervical cell than those whose husbands had < 4 sexual partners. Conclusion: The number of sexual partners is significantly associated with abnormal cervical cell among the Hmong and Mien hill tribe women. Health interventions regarding safe sex should be promoted in the hill tribe people.