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Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon
BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Cameroon, breast cancer causes as many as 10.7 deaths per 100,000 women making it the second cause of cancer mortality. Better documenting women’s knowledge and practices on breast cancer and breas...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3522012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23140094 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-5-627 |
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author | Suh, Mary Atanga Bi Atashili, Julius Fuh, Eunice Asoh Eta, Vivian Ayamba |
author_facet | Suh, Mary Atanga Bi Atashili, Julius Fuh, Eunice Asoh Eta, Vivian Ayamba |
author_sort | Suh, Mary Atanga Bi |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Cameroon, breast cancer causes as many as 10.7 deaths per 100,000 women making it the second cause of cancer mortality. Better documenting women’s knowledge and practices on breast cancer and breast self-exam (BSE) would be useful in the design of interventions aimed at preventing breast cancer. This study sought to 1. describe Cameroonian women’s knowledge of breast self-examination (BSE); 2. assess their impression on the practice of BSE and 3. describe their perceptions on the causes, risk factors and prevention of breast cancer. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a volunteer sample of 120 consenting women in Buea, Cameroon. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire self-administered by study participants. RESULTS: The sample was fairly educated with close to three quarters (70.83%) having completed high school. Nearly three quarters (74.17%) of participants had previously heard about BSE, however as many as 40% had never done a BSE. Although 95% of participants believed that breast cancer could be prevented, only 36.67% recognized breast examination as a prevention method. A substantial 13.33% thought that breast cancer could be prevented with a vaccine while 45% thought that dieting or exercising would prevent breast cancer. Similarly, 70% of participants thought that breast cancer could be treated, with 35.83% thinking that it could be treated medically while 34.17% thought it could be treated traditionally or spiritually. CONCLUSIONS: The practice of BSE while perceived as being important is not frequent in these women in Buea, Cameroon. Health education campaigns are imperative to elucidate the public on the causes, risk factors and prevention of breast cancer. Further studies need to explore what interventions could be best used to improve the uptake and practice of BSE. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3522012 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-35220122012-12-14 Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon Suh, Mary Atanga Bi Atashili, Julius Fuh, Eunice Asoh Eta, Vivian Ayamba BMC Res Notes Research Article BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Cameroon, breast cancer causes as many as 10.7 deaths per 100,000 women making it the second cause of cancer mortality. Better documenting women’s knowledge and practices on breast cancer and breast self-exam (BSE) would be useful in the design of interventions aimed at preventing breast cancer. This study sought to 1. describe Cameroonian women’s knowledge of breast self-examination (BSE); 2. assess their impression on the practice of BSE and 3. describe their perceptions on the causes, risk factors and prevention of breast cancer. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a volunteer sample of 120 consenting women in Buea, Cameroon. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire self-administered by study participants. RESULTS: The sample was fairly educated with close to three quarters (70.83%) having completed high school. Nearly three quarters (74.17%) of participants had previously heard about BSE, however as many as 40% had never done a BSE. Although 95% of participants believed that breast cancer could be prevented, only 36.67% recognized breast examination as a prevention method. A substantial 13.33% thought that breast cancer could be prevented with a vaccine while 45% thought that dieting or exercising would prevent breast cancer. Similarly, 70% of participants thought that breast cancer could be treated, with 35.83% thinking that it could be treated medically while 34.17% thought it could be treated traditionally or spiritually. CONCLUSIONS: The practice of BSE while perceived as being important is not frequent in these women in Buea, Cameroon. Health education campaigns are imperative to elucidate the public on the causes, risk factors and prevention of breast cancer. Further studies need to explore what interventions could be best used to improve the uptake and practice of BSE. BioMed Central 2012-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3522012/ /pubmed/23140094 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-5-627 Text en Copyright ©2012 Bi Suh et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Suh, Mary Atanga Bi Atashili, Julius Fuh, Eunice Asoh Eta, Vivian Ayamba Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon |
title | Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon |
title_full | Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon |
title_fullStr | Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon |
title_full_unstemmed | Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon |
title_short | Breast Self-Examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in Buea, Cameroon |
title_sort | breast self-examination and breast cancer awareness in women in developing countries: a survey of women in buea, cameroon |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3522012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23140094 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-0500-5-627 |
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