From today’s lecture and the reading i think, in medicine screening is a process of identifying risk factors or disease in an apparently healthy person. And most of the cases it doesn’t tell you that you have the disease rather it identifies the chances of developing a disease. Furthermore, it divides the population into two groups- “LIKELY” & “UNLIKELY”. However, for a lay person screening test is a “certificate of health”. And the implementation of screening programmes has increased dramatically for the last few decades even in the developing countries such as- India, Bangladesh. For example, screening tests for cervical cancer and currently there are 3 tests available. However, screening test has both beneficial and harmful effects.
Benefits of cervical cancer screening:
1) Patient - it reduces the chances of developing cervical cancer about 90% thus reduces the burden of the disease.
- Early diagnosis results in early treatment
2) Pharmaceuticals- they get benefitted financial as well as in marketing.
3) Epidemiologist- can use the pt records and results for research purpose
4) Health care personal- every patient is a new book and act as a source of knowledge. (what i think)
Harmful effects of cervical cancer-
1) Cost effective
2) Screening tests often gives false positive result (especially VIA test) which has a negative psychological consequence that may persist years after. It usually changes the normal life style of that patient. Even the patients with a false positive results but a cancer free cervical biopsy appears more likely to worry about their successive chances of developing cervical cancer and report more problems with sexual function and anxiety disorder then the others with a normal result.
3) A false negative result gives false reassurance and worsens the condition further.
Finally, in my opinion screening tests are useful or effective for the general population especially for the diseases with high prevalence rate. However, it is equally vital to look into the harmful effects of screening as its benefits.
