Comparative Study on the Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Self Breast Examination and Breast Cancer Screening Between First and Second Class Women of Kitwe District

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is the second leading cause of cancer related deaths in both developing and developed countries. One major contributor to high morbidity is late diagnosis which is due to lack of knowledge of the risk factors, causes, early signs and symptoms and simple screening tools like Self Breast Examination (SBE) and Clinical Breast Examination (CBE). The aim of this study was to compare level of knowledge of BC, CBE and SBE as well as attitude and practice towards CBE and SBE between women in rural and urban areas. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 women who were residents of Parklands (Urban area) and Kawama (Rural area). Equal numbers of women from each area were recruited into the study. All the 300 questionnaires were properly filled and returned. Data was entered and analysed in SPSS version 20.0 software. The majority of participants (34.3%) were between the age of 36 and 45 years and resided in Parklands (59.2%). All the participants (100%) had heard about CBE but only 87.3% of these respondents were able to explain correctly what it is (53.7% urban and 42.7% rural). Of all the respondents, 57.7% had heard about Self Breast Examination before the day of the interview. The most common source of information of CBE was 'friends' (77%). Furthermore, 49.7% of the subjects had good knowledge about BC and CBE, while 28% had poor knowledge. Of all the women, 45% had good knowledge about BSE while 53.7% had poor knowledge. In addition, 96.3% of the respondents showed good attitude toward CBE and 3.7% showed poor attitude. Level of education showed significant relationship with Practice of CBE (P -value: 0.00), Practice of SBE (P-Value: 0.00), level of knowledge of CBE (P -value: 0.00) and level of knowledge of SBE (P -Value: 0.00). Lastly, attitude towards CBE did not seem to show any significant relationship with practice of CBE (P -Value: 0.522). The findings of the study showed that most of rural than urban women had poor knowledge about BC, CBE and SBE. Educational programs on breast cancer and SBE should be conducted in print and electronic media using the local languages to reach out to the women in rural areas.