{"doi":"10.17615/x3a9-rz07","title":"Acceptability and ease of use of mailed HPV self-collection among infrequently screened women in North Carolina","abstract":"Objectives: Self-collection of cervico-vaginal samples for human papillomavirus (HPV) testing has the potential to make cervical cancer screening more accessible to underscreened women. We evaluated the acceptability and ease of use of home-based HPV self-collection within a diverse population of low-income, infrequently screened women. Methods: Participants were low-income women from North Carolina who had not received Pap testing in 4 or more years. Eligible women received a self-collection kit containing instructions and a brush for home-based sample collection. A total of 227 women returned a self-collected sample by mail and completed a questionnaire to assess their experiences with HPV self-collection. We described acceptability measures and used logistic regression to identify predictors of overall positive thoughts about the self-collection experience. Results: Nearly all women were willing to perform HPV self-collection again (98%) and were comfortable receiving the self-collection kit in the mail (99%). Overall, 81% of participants reported positive thoughts about home-based self-collection. Women with at least some college education and those who were divorced, separated or widowed were more likely to report overall positive thoughts. Aspects of self-collection that participants most commonly reported liking included convenience (53%), ease of use (32%) and privacy (23%). The most frequently reported difficulties included uncertainty that the self-collection was done correctly (16%) and difficulty inserting the self-collection brush (16%). Conclusions: Home-based self-collection for HPV was a highly acceptable screening method among low-income, underscreened women and holds the promise to increase access to cervical cancer screening in this high-risk population.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2024,"id":498870,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9549,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":598361,"name":"Alice R. Richman","orcid":"0000-0002-9476-943X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1345950,"name":"C. C. Anderson","orcid":"0000-0001-7586-1380","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":598360,"name":"Andrea C. Des Marais","orcid":"0000-0002-2914-0109","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":976944,"name":"N.T. Brewer","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1345945,"name":"Lesley Barclay","orcid":"0000-0002-9345-3468","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1345951,"name":"Charlotte Rastas","orcid":"0000-0002-2158-6472","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1346425,"name":"Lindsay Breithaupt","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":528926,"name":"Jennifer S. Smith","orcid":"0000-0003-1457-7735","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:09:45.971055Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}