BACKGROUND: Almost one-third of Norwegian @entity1 aged 25-69 years invited to have a Pap smear do not attend during the recommended period, and thus constitute a population with high-risk of @entity5 ( @entity5 ). Since the incidence of @entity1613 of the cervix peak with occurrence of pregnancies within the same decade in @entity1 aged 25 to 35 years of age, antepartum care presents an opportunity to offer a Pap smear thereby increasing the coverage of the programme. The study objective was to describe the effect of the antepartum Pap smear on the coverage of a cytological @entity5 screening programme. METHODS: Among 2 175 762 @entity1 resident in Norway in 31.12.1996, all @entity1 who gave birth in 1996-7 were identified from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. Attendance to the @entity5 screening was assessed by linkage to the Cytology Registry separately for the pregnant and non-pregnant @entity1 cohorts. The results were stratified by age, history of previous Pap smear and history of invitation to the @entity5 screening programme. Logistic regression was used to estimate the relative probabilities of having a Pap smear adjusted for age, screening history, and time since invitation, for pregnant and non-pregnant @entity1 , respectively. RESULTS: 69% of the pregnant @entity1 had a Pap smear during one year of follow-up since beginning of the pregnancy with the majority taken during the antepartum period. Irrespectively of age or history of having a Pap smear, pregnant @entity1 were 4.3 times more likely to have a Pap smear during follow-up compared to non-pregnant @entity1 . 63.2% of the pregnant @entity1 had a smear as response to the invitation letter compared to 28.7% of the non-pregnant @entity1 , OR = 2.1 (95% CI 1.9 to 2.4). As an indication of "over-screening", 5397 pregnant @entity1 (57.8%) with a smear shortly before the start of follow-up also had a new Papsmear, compared to 83 023 (32.3%) in non-pregnant. CONCLUSION: Pap smear screening during pregnancy increases the coverage of the @entity5 screening programme. The contribution of the antepartum Pap smear to "over-screening" exists but its effect is modest in countries where @entity1 on average become pregnant after the start of recommended age of screening.

Effect of an antepartum Pap smear on the coverage of a XXXX screening programme: a population-based prospective study.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['women'] @entity5 :: ('MESH:D009369', 'Disease') :: ['CC', 'cervical cancer'] @entity1613 :: ('MESH:D011230', 'Disease') :: ['precancerous lesions']
@entity5 :: (MESH:D009369,Disease) :: ['cervical cancer']
