Abstract:
Despite efforts to promote testing, Chinese women possess the lowest cervical cancerscreening rate of 45% when compared with the New Zealand national average of 72% according to the New Zealand National Cervical Screening Programme (NZSP) report (Gao, Paterson, DeSouza, & Lu, 2008). Besides commonly studied barriers, such as logistic and cognitive obstacles that impact Chinese women’s reluctance to undergo cervical screening, evidence also suggest that culture-linked barriers such as negative perception and emotional reaction towards sexual health matters affect Chinese women’s decision-making to engage with cervical screening. The purpose of this study was to investigate barriers across demographic, environmental, cultural, cognitive and emotional dimensions. In addition, the study explored the role of emotional reaction (i.e. sexual disgust) towards sexual health matters in the interaction between acculturation (as measured by the use of language to answer questionnaires) and cervical screening. Chinese (N = 126) women across New Zealand completed a battery of questionnaires. The acculturated women had significantly more accurate sexual health knowledge in relation to cervical cancer, showed less cognitive avoidance towards cervical cancer related matters, rated logistical challenges less negatively, and more importantly, scored significantly lower on Sexual Disgust Scales. Further analyses using a multivariate model disclosed that sexual disgust was the strongest predictor for Chinese women to undergo cervical screening in New Zealand. The findings provided support for the hypothesis that low cervical screening rates in Chinese women were related to cultural attitudes towards sexuality and highlighted the importance of taking emotional reaction into account such as sexual disgust associated with reproductive health matters. Lastly, the study also explored preferential communication channels between the acculturated group and traditional group (who answered questionnaires in Mandarin). WeChat was found to be used significantly more by the traditional group, which supported the assumption that a more culturally tailored health related message dissemination approach should be considered when promoting cervical screening programmes for Chinese women in New Zealand.