PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe women's embarrassability and embarrassment during cervical screening. METHOD: The subjects of this study were 82 women who had a cervical screening at a National University Hospital. The data were collected through personal interview using a questionnaire from February 4, 2001 to February 22, 2002. The questionnaire consisted of embarrassability scale, embarrassment Scale, and demographic data. RESULT: 1) The mean scores of situational embarrassability was 82.6 and that of dispositional embarrassability was 106.7. 2) The mean scores of subject's embarrassment was 54.3 and 48.7 in 10 stages of cervical screening. The following three situations of 10 stages of cervical screening were highly ranked as to be embarrassing: 'during the examination', 'waiting for a doctor', and 'climbing up the exam chair and positioning her thigh for a exam'. 3) There was a positive correlation between dispositional embarrassability and embarrassment of 10 stages of cervical screening. 4) There were significant differences in situational embarrassability of subjects according to education and the locations of service. There were significant differences in dispositional embarrassability of subjects with regard to frequencies of pregnancy. 5) There were significant differences in embarrassment of subjects during cervical screening with respect to age, age at the time of first smear and gender of the examiner. CONCLUSION: The finding of this study indicates that women experienced a high level of embarrassment during cervical screening, assuming a need for nursing intervention reduces women's embarrassment. Also, there is a positive correlation between embarrassability and embarrassment of cervical screening, suggesting a need for further research identifying the effect of nursing intervention on embarrassment according to embarrassability.

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