title: Opting out of cervical cancer screening: physicians who do not perform pap tests.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Some primary care physicians choose not to provide cervical cancer screening.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the characteristics and screening beliefs of family practitioners and internists who treat adult women in outpatient settings but perform no routine Pap tests.
  
  
  METHODS
  A survey of U.S. primary care physicians (N=892) was conducted and analyzed in 2012.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants who performed no Pap tests during a typical month (17.2% of family practitioners and 44.3% of internists) generally reported that they referred patients to gynecologists for cervical cancer screening. The most significant predictor of Pap test non-provision was agreement that patients are best served by having Pap tests performed by gynecologists (AOR=8.80, 95% CI=5.58, 13.88, p<0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The perception that patients benefit from cervical cancer screening administered by gynecologists may deter screening in primary care settings, resulting in missed opportunities to offer screening to women who are never or rarely screened.
authors: Soltera Center for Cancer Prevention and Control, Tucson, Arizona.
authors: Crystale Purvis
authors: CP
authors: Cooper
authors: Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia. Electronic address: yzs2@cdc.gov.
authors: Mona
authors: M
authors: Saraiya
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014481:United States; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000706:statistics & numerical data