Organised cervical cancer screening programme in the Belgrade municipality of Cukarica - Evaluation of process indicators.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the process indicators for monitoring the Organized Cervical Cancer Screening Programme (OCCSP) conducted in the Belgrade municipality of Cukarica within the first three-year interval, and to compare Pap test coverage for women aged 25 to 64 before and after implementing the organised programme.

METHODS: We analyzed the coverage by invitation, compliance with invitation and coverage by Pap test for the first three-year interval of the OCCSP (20th Dec 2012 - 19th Dec 2015) as well as the results of opportunistic screening for the same period and coverage by Pap test for women aged 25 to 64 for the last three years prior to the implementation of the OCCSP.

RESULTS: After the first three years of the OCCSP implementation, coverage by invitation was 42.9%, compliance to invitation 66.7% and coverage by Pap test was 28.6%. During the same period, outside of the program (opportunistic screening) coverage by Pap test was 9.4%. In the last three years prior to the implementation of the OCCSP coverage by Pap test for women aged 25 to 64 was 21.4%.

CONCLUSION: After the first three-year interval of the OCCSP implementation, the overall (organised + opportunistic) Pap test coverage for women aged 25-64 has almost doubled compared to the period when we conducted exclusively opportunistic screening (38.4 vs 21.4%). However, incentive payment for the smear takers and better coordination and planning of capacity-building is needed in order to achieve the 75% Pap tests coverage recommended by the National Programme for Early Detection of Cervical Cancer.