Abstract
Cervical cancer is a common and deadly disease, especially in developing countries. We developed and implemented an interactive, tablet-based educational intervention to improve cervical cancer knowledge among women in rural Malawi. Chichewa-speaking adult women in six rural villages participated. Each woman took a pretest, participated in the lesson, and then took a posttest. The lesson included information on cervical cancer symptoms, causes, risk factors, prevention, and treatment. Over the 6-month study period, 243 women participated. Women ranged in age from 18 to 77 years. Only 15 % had education beyond primary school. Nearly half of participants (48 %) had heard of cervical cancer prior to viewing the lesson. For these women, the median number of correct responses on the pretest was 11 out of 20; after the lesson, they had a median of 18 correct responses (p < 0.001). After the intervention, 93 % of women indicated a desire for cervical cancer screening. Despite lack of familiarity with computers (96 %), most women (94 %) found the tablet easy to use. A tablet-based educational program was an effective, feasible, and acceptable strategy to disseminate cervical cancer information to women with low education in rural Malawi. This method may be appropriate to distribute health information about other health topics in low-resource settings.