Introduction:

The Papanicolaou test smear helps detect cervical cancer in a timely manner in routine intervention.

Objective:

To analyze factors associated with screening for cervical cancer in women aged 12 to 49 years in Peru in 2019.

Methods:

An observational, analytical-cross-sectional study of a secondary analysis of data from 2019 Demographic and Family Health Survey was carried out. Two-stage, probabilistic, balanced, and stratified sampling. Descriptive and analytical statistics were used (level of inference p<0.05). For the bivariate and multivariate analysis, prevalence ratios were used with a 95% confidence interval and p<0.05.

Results:

The frequency of cervical cancer screening in the political regions with the lowest prevalence values were Pasco (0.52%) and Tumbes (0.55%).

Discussion:

The factors associated with cervical cancer screening are age, having a partner, higher education level, poor socioeconomic level, residing in a rural area, having health insurance, age at the start of sexual relations, and having heard of cervical cancer.