Breast self examination and mammography in cancer screening: women health protective behavior

BACKGROUND. Breast cancer (BC) is one of the leading causes of death among women. Secondary prevention may enable early detection, but this is suboptimal among all Iranian women. METHODS. This was a descriptive, analytic cross sectional study on 385 women 35 years old or more with no history of BC. Participants were selected by simple randomized method and were assessed through a two-part self-administered questionnaire and a self-examination checklist with content validity and test-re-test reliability. RESULTS. 14.8% of women carried out breast self examination (BSE). Among them 5.7% was done in adequate timing and 9.4% performed it on a regular basis. The average age of BSE onset was 20.1 ± 7.6 and mean of Score was 6.25 ± 2.26 (2-11). 2.3% of participants performed BSE poorly, 7.5% fairly and 1.6% performed it well. 25.84% of samples had a history of mammography that 13% of whom received it as a result of prescription. The average age for mammography was 36 ± 7.2 (20-50) years and the frequency of mammography was 1.8 ± 1.4 (1-8) of times. Due to the low percentage of breast cancer preventive behaviors, in this study knowledge towards breast cancer was also measured because they are factors that are crucial in performance. CONCLUSION. The results highlight the need to educate Iranian women to recognize the risk factors to promote early detection of breast cancer. Creation of health behavioral by focused educational programs might cause decrease of breast cancer prevalence.