Awareness Levels about Breast Cancer Risk Factors, Early Warning Signs, and Screening and Therapeutic Approaches among Iranian Adult Women: A large Population Based Study Using Latent Class Analysis

Abstract

Background and Objective. Breast cancer (BC) continues to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality among women throughout the world and in Iran. Lack of awareness and early detection program in developing country is a main reason for escalating the mortality. The present research was conducted to assess the Iranian women's level of knowledge about breast cancer risk factors, early warning signs, and therapeutic and screening approaches, and their correlated determinants. Methods. In a cross-sectional study, 2250 women before participating at a community based screening and public educational program in an institute of cancer research in Isfahan, Iran, in 2012 were investigated using a self-administered questionnaire about risk factors, early warning signs, and therapeutic and screening approaches of BC. Latent class regression as a comprehensive statistical method was used for evaluating the level of knowledge and its correlated determinants. Results. Only 33.2%, 31.9%, 26.7%, and 35.8% of study participants had high awareness levels about screening approaches, risk factors, early warning signs and therapeutic modalities of breast cancer, respectively, and majority had poor to moderate knowledge levels. Most effective predictors of high level of awareness were higher educational qualifications, attending in screening and public educational programs, personal problem, and family history of BC, respectively. Conclusion. Results of current study indicated that the levels of awareness among study population about key elements of BC are low. These findings reenforce the continuing need for more BC education through conducting public and professional programs that are intended to raise awareness among younger, single women and those with low educational attainments and without family history.

Development of a Breast Cancer Awareness Scale for Thai Women: Moving towards a Validated Measure

“…Some domains of the B-CAS were consistent with those identified in previous research including, knowledge of risk factors, signs and symptoms and barrier to breast screening (Al-Dubai et al, 2011;Norsa'adah et al, 2012;Sathian et al, 2014;Tazhibi and Feizi, 2014;Yousuf et al, 2012). In addition to these commonly used domains, we identified domains not included in a large majority of existing instruments.…”

“…A majority of existing instruments focus primarily on breast screening behavior as an indicator of breast cancer awareness (Kanaga et al, 2011;Norlaili et al, 2013;Donnelly et al, 2014;Elobaid et al, 2014;Tazhibi and Feizi, 2014). However, several studies (Patel et al, 2003;Liu et al, 2014a;Miyawaki et al, 2014) have advocated the inclusion of health self efficacy and general health awareness as important components of breast cancer awareness.…”

“…In Asian countries, breast cancer is the most diagnosed female cancer and increasing incidence has been observed in several Asian countries (Long et al, 2010;Youlden et al, 2014). This has led to several studies investigating the actual problem by way of studying breast cancer awareness (Khokhar, 2009;Al-Dubai et al, 2011;Kanaga et al, 2011;Gurdal et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2012;Yoo et al, 2012;Donnelly et al, 2013;Norlaili et al, 2013;Radi, 2013;Liu et al, 2014;Sathian et al, 2014;Miyawaki, Shibata et al, 2014;Tazhibi and Feizi, 2014). Most studies have found that the awareness of breast cancer in developing countries was weak compared with developed countries (Jones et al, 2010;Kwok et al, 2012).…”

Breast Cancer Survivors in Iloilo City: Profile, Knowledge, and Health Seeking Behaviors

“…The result was supported by the findings of [23] that majority had moderate to poor knowledge levels. However, less than one-half of study participants had high awareness levels about screening approaches, risk factors, early warning signs, and therapeutic modalities of breast cancer, respectively.…”

St Gallen molecular subtypes in screening-detected and symptomatic breast cancer in a prospective cohort with long-term follow-up

“…Indeed, in countries where screening programmes do not exist or do not function properly, breast cancer prognosis at the time of diagnosis is generally poorer9 than in countries where screening programmes have been established. The mode of detection – screening versus symptomatic – has repeatedly been reported to be an independent positive prognostic factor irrespective of diagnosis at an earlier stage, although this finding has been challenged by the introduction of modern molecular pathology4, 10.…”