The influence of the social support about 20s women's cervical cancer screening who are doing physical activities on the screening attitude
Authors: Yunhwa Ko 
Published: November 2023

This research observes the influence of the social support about cervical cancer screening on the screening attitude to provide necessary implications by drawing the method for preventing young women's cervical cancer. The research targets were extracted conveniently from Seoul and Gyeonggi‐do area, it was total 281 people and the average age was 22.94 years old. The question for measuring the social support was used by Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support: MSPSS which was developed by G. D. Zimet, N. M. Dahlem, S. G. Zimet and G. K. Farley(1988). The ‘social support’ question was composed of total 12 questions with 3 factors(family support, friend support, doctor/nurse support) and was evaluated as 5‐point Likert Scale which means 1 point as ‘Not at all’ and 5 points as ‘Absolutely’. The question for measuring the cervical cancer screening intention used the question which was used by E. C. Jung and C. H. Jin(2011). The questions for measuring the cervical cancer screening attitude used the questions which was used by [ G. U. Ko, D. H. Lee, Y. H. Lee, H. S. Son, (2002); J. A. Lee, M. D. Park, J. H. Shin, A. S. Sohn, M. O. Kim(2000)]. The cervical cancer screening attitude question is consisted of 8 questions with single factors which are the necessity of cervical cancer screening, the financial burdens, the dangerousness, the early detection and the health and these are evaluated by 5‐point Likert scale which means 1 point as ‘Not at all’ and 5 points as ‘Absolutely’. In this research, having higher average means that the attitude for the cervical cancer screening is positive. After examining how the social support effects on the cervical cancer screening attitude, the family support(β=.55, t=10.72, p<.001) and the friend support(β=.16, t=10.72, p<.01) except doctor/nurse support(β=.02, t=.49, p>.05) presents that these two silently effects on the cervical cancer screening attitude. Therefore, it seems that the family support and the friend support positively effects on the cervical cancer screening attitude. Social support is not only the source of unofficial treatment but also the advice about the health and the physical care and it supplies the psychological support. The health is the one of the social compositions in the perspective of the contextual construction, and the process of having diseases and treating them is effected by social contexts and the influence of social relations like family, friends etc. Eventually, when people sick or want some consolations or when they want to get some information related to health, they want to get social support from family or friend who supports them, and these supports can be evaluated positively to the formation of individual attitude. Moreover, the social relation which is also called the source of social support supports the result of this research by producing emotional, informative support with the points that it reduces the uncertainty related to health, enhances the sense of control and works as the motive to effectively handle the specific situation about health. If we reflect the result of this research, to enhance the screening intention as the preventive behavior for young women's cervical cancer, the social support about cervical cancer screening has to be improved, and by through this, it is important to have the positive attitude.Support or Funding Informationsocial support, women, cervical cancer, screening attitude