Level of awareness of mammography among women attending outpatient clinics in a teaching hospital in Ibadan, South-West Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Mammography has been used in developed countries with considerable success but very little is known about this imaging modality in low resource settings. This study examined the level of awareness of mammography and determined factors influencing the level of awareness. METHODS: We conducted a hospital based cross sectional study to investigate the level of awareness of mammography among 818 randomly selected women attending the General Outpatient clinics (GOP) of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria. Independent predictors of level of awareness of mammography were identified using multiple logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: The proportion of women who ever heard of mammography was 5%, and they demonstrated poor knowledge of the procedure. Those with primary or secondary levels of education were about three times less likely to be aware of mammography when compared with those with tertiary level of education (OR = 0.3, 95% CI, 0.12 – 0.73). Also, participation in community breast cancer prevention activities (OR = 3.4, 95% CI, 1.39 – 8.36), and previous clinical breast examination (OR = 2.34, 95% CI, 1.10 – 4.96) independently predicted mammography awareness. Newspapers and magazines appeared to be the most important sources of information about mammography screening. CONCLUSION: The level of awareness of mammography is poor among women attending outpatient clinics in the studied population. Interventions promoting awareness of this screening procedure should give particular attention to the illiterate and older women while clinicians performing breast examinations should utilize the opportunity to inform women about the mammography procedure. Promotion of educational articles on breast cancer and its screening methods via media remains vital for the literate.