This video was produced by a group of medical students undertaking a student selected component on Cancer Prevention and Screening at the University of Dundee.
Sarah, Zainab and Rosie wrote:
‘We hoped to create a video that would motivate young women to participate in cervical screening, with a particular focus on the first screening appointment. We aimed to give simple and relatable information that would encourage young women to make an appointment without unnecessarily scaring them.
As we are of a similar age to our target audience, we felt that we could sympathise and hopefully convey our message well. We based the video in a young women’s home environment in an effort to make it as realistic as possible. It is well known how easy it is to simply not read or acknowledge screening invitations, and as such we tried to capture this element as a barrier to screening.
The music was included to try and create a reflective atmosphere. For this we used “A Storm at Eilean Mor” by Jon Luc Hefferman.
We tried to include some relevant facts about cervical cancer without overloading the audience with technical information or jargon. Thus we spoke about the incidence and cause of cervical cancer, as well as the benefits of the screening itself. We tried to consolidate the most important information provided in the screening booklets, as these can feel like a lot of reading. We read around the subject on relevant websites such as NHSinform and Cancer Research UK.
Overall we enjoyed this project, although we found it quite challenging as none of us have any experience in filming or editing videos in this way. However, we hope that the final result reflects our efforts well.’