Effectiveness of Pre-procedural Psycho-education on Pain Perception and Anxiety in Women Undergoing Colposcopy

Cervical cancer is a major cause of morbidity and mortality among women. It is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in females. Screening strategies such as colposcopy can cause anxiety, discomfort, and pain in patients during this procedure and poor quality of life. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of psychoeducation on pain perception and anxiety in women undergoing colposcopy. This randomized clinical trial included 60 women, candidates for colposcopy referred to the surgical clinic of Kashan, Iran. The patients were randomly assigned into two groups: the experimental group, which received 60 minutes of psychoeducation, and the control group. Data were collected with the Spielberger anxiety inventory and visual analog score of pain and were analyzed using independent and dependent t-tests, Chi-square, and co-variance performed with SPSS version 16. The means of anxiety scores were significantly decreased post-psychoeducation in the intervention group, and the differences between the two groups were statistically significant in the anxiety scores (P < 0.0001). A significant difference was observed between the mean anxiety scores of the intervention group prior to and after the psychoeducational program (PEP) intervention (99.50 +/- 5.28 vs. 84.89 +/- 8.80) (P < 0.0001). No significant changes were observed in the control group pre- and postpsychoeducation (P> 0.05). There was no statistically significant difference between the mean pain score between the study and the control group at the end of the study (P= 0.17). Psychoeducation resulted in reduced anxiety in women undergoing colposcopy. Therefore, it is recommended to consider this intervention as a suitable and effective complementary, non-invasive, low-cost method to reduce anxiety in these patients.