2025 · Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · open access
Acceptability of Self-Sampling for Cervical Screening in Ethnically Diverse Groups in Northwest England: A Focus Group Study
Whitley et al.
The finding, in our words
Focus groups with 48 women from diverse ethnic groups in Northwest England revealed that self-sampling for cervical screening was highly acceptable, particularly because it offered privacy, autonomy, and reduced discomfort. The study indicates that providing a self-sampling option could increase screening uptake among underserved populations, though participants expressed concerns about test accuracy and practical usability.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
A study of 2500 women found 99.0% agreement between first-void urine and vaginal self-sampling for HPV detection using Cobas4800, with 98.1% of participants preferring urine. Although conducted in a resource-limited setting which may limit generalisability, these results support urine as a viable sample type for decentralised, patient-centric screening.
First-void urine and self-collected vaginal swabs showed similar sensitivity and specificity to clinician-collected cervical samples for high-risk HPV detection across two real-time PCR assays, supporting their use as decentralised, patient-collected alternatives; most women preferred first-void urine for regular cervical screening.
A et al., Journal of gynecologic oncology (paywalled) · source ↗
This randomised sub-study found return rates of 10.4% for Colli-Pee, 10.1% for FLOQSwabs and 7.4% for Evalyn-Brush. All devices yielded sufficient DNA with low invalid rates, but the authors noted the study was limited by low overall participation.
Hempel et al., Archives of gynecology and obstetrics · source ↗
Self-sampling for HPV testing using urine and swab devices achieved high DNA detection rates, 92.1-99.7%, and very high participant acceptance, 99.1%, in a primary care population, supporting decentralised screening in low-resource settings.
This meta-analysis found that urine self-sampling for HPV detection had significantly lower sensitivity for high-grade lesions compared to vaginal and cervical samples, though specificity remained comparable. Despite the reduced diagnostic accuracy, the non-invasive and acceptable nature of urine sampling supports its use as a decentralised option to improve screening uptake.
Nath et al., Journal of medical screening (paywalled) · source ↗