Knowledge, attitudes and behavior about breast cancer in women presenting to Early Cancer Diagnosis, Screening and Education Centre in Kahramanmaras, Turkey

Abstract

This study was performed to investigate knowledge, attitudes and behavior about breast cancer in the women applying to Early Cancer Diagnosis, Screening and Education Centre. The study included 96 women applying to Early Cancer Diagnosis, Screening and Education Centre between 1 January 2013 and 1 February 2014. The women were offered information about the study and those giving written informed consent were enrolled in the study. A questionnaire created by the researchers was used to collect data. The mean age of participants was 40.28±9.21 years (min=18, max=62). Seventy-eight participants (81.3%) reported that the most frequent cancer was breast cancer and 16 participants (16.7%) reported that uterine cancer was the most frequent cancer. Breast cancer was reported to appear in all stages of life by 73 participants (76%), in old age by 13 participants (13.5%) and in young people by 10 participants (10.4%). Information about breast cancer was found to be offered to 37 women (38.5%) by health staff and 24 women (25%) by radio/TV programs. Fiftyfour women (56.3%) performed breast self-examination, but 42 women (43.8%) did not perform the examination. Thirty-four women aged 40 years and older (61.8%) and 20 women aged younger than 40 years (48.8%) were found to carry out breast self-examination, though there was not a significant difference between them (P=0.203). The study showed that the women did not have sufficient knowledge about breast cancer. In addition, the women did not implement methods used for early diagnosis of breast cancer.

Recent incidence and descriptive epidemiological survey of breast cancer in Saudi Arabia

“… 5 - 7 Despite this finding, low participation rates in BC screening activities have been reported among Arab women. 6 , 8 - 10 Breast cancer is reported from developed nations and Western countries, while data on relevant reports from KSA appears either scattered, or not brought to the limelight. 11 Regarding risk factors, women with a family history of BC should obtain as much information as possible on those relatives, including age at onset, and type of cancer.…”

The Effects of Training on Knowledge and Beliefs About Breast Cancer and Early Diagnosis Methods Among Women

“…This is emphasized in order to increase the effectiveness of the screening methods, it is needed to use two or three of the methods in combination. However, in this regard, studies published in many countries and in Turkey have shown that the rate of participation of women in the BC screening program was low (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13). The reasons why women did not participate in the screening program included lack of information and pain ranking the first, not wanting to be exposed to radiation, being afraid to discover the cancer, embarrassment, fatalism, and misinformation, not seeing a physician unless ill, possibility that screening might be refused by the family, negligence, lack of physician recommendation, health-care provider attitudes, not remembering to do it, discomfort, and having not enough time to handle it (12,(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19).…”

Assessment of Knowledge and Attitudes of Patients About Cancer Screenings in Primary Care

“…Breast cancer is the most well-known cancer type (79%) and also most well-known that it could be detected early by screening among all cancer types (65.5%). Also in other studies, it was showed that patients knew breast cancer as the most common cancer, and they knew that breast cancer could be diagnosed early [13,14]. The most well-known sign of cancer was weight loss (62.8%) followed by fatigue (58%) and mass (swelling) (%53.8).…”

“…The studies performed about this subject either studied only one type of cancers or were assessing the attitudes of doctors about cancer screenings [11][12][13][14][15]. Also these studies generally were performed locally.…”