Development of a Breast Cancer Awareness Scale for Thai Women: Moving towards a Validated Measure

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is a major health problem among women around the world. Recent developments in screening and treatment have greatly improved the prognosis of patients with breast cancer in developed countries. However, in developing countries breast cancer mortality remains high.Breast cancer awareness is a first and important step in reducing breast cancer mortality. The development of a validated instrument to measure breast cancer awareness is crucial for the understanding and implementation of suitable health education programs to facilitate early deletion and minimize mortality. Objective: The objective of this study was to develop an instrument for the assessment of breast cancer awareness in Thai women. Materials and Methods: This methodological study was conducted in two stages: (1) literature searches and semi-structured interviews were conducted to generate items of the breast cancer awareness scale (B-CAS) which were subsequently examined for content and face validity, and (2) an exploration of the factor structure of the resulting instrument and an examination of its reliability. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire in Thai women aged 20-64 in August, 2015. Results: A total of 219 women (response rate 97.4 %) participated in this validation study. The B-CAS contains five domains with 53 items on breast cancer awareness: 1) knowledge of risk factors, 2) knowledge of signs and symptoms, 3) attitude to breast cancer prevention, 4) barriers of breast screening, and 5) health behavior related to breast cancer awareness. Items with a content validity index < 0.80 were excluded, and factor structure for the remaining items reflected the hypothesized five factor model. The scales based on all retained items was shown to have strongly internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's α=0.86). Conclusions: The B-CAS provides good psychometric properties to assess breast cancer awareness in women. It can be used to examine breast cancer awareness in Thai women and it could lead to the development and evaluation of suitable educational interventions for raising breast cancer awareness. Future research should focus on further validating the B-CAS including an assessment of construct and criterion-based validity.

Transcultural adaptation and validation of the Persian version of the breast cancer awareness measure (BCAM) questionnaire

“…The SEM as a measure of absolute reliability, and the SDC, as a real change greater than the measurement error, were not evaluated for the original English version and for the other translated versions of BCAM; however, the estimated values of SEM and SDC were satisfactory in the current study, which indicates the reliability and responsiveness of the BCAM‐Persian. Accordingly, these indices (SDC and SEM) will be useful in interventional studies for evaluating the effectiveness of intervention.…”

“…Previous studies have shown that the increased women's awareness about early diagnosis can change people's screening health‐seeking behaviors . Therefore, there is an urgent need for improving great BC awareness and its early detection measures among women . Accordingly, developing and validating of instruments for measuring and monitoring levels of breast cancer awareness and its determinants could be a pivotal approach .…”

“…Such standardized instruments can help policy makers to design and evaluate the interventions in order to promote breast cancer awareness efficiently . Although in recent years, several breast cancer awareness instruments have been developed and validated over the world . Some of these instruments contain design and/or methodological limitations and are not fully validated .…”

Knowledge about Risk Factors for Breast Cancer and Having a Close Relative with Cancer Affect the Frequency of Breast Self-Examination Performance

“…This variable was independent in the regression model and showed significant values for all BSE performance categories. In a recent study conducted in Thailand, knowledge of risk factors was identified as a relevant variable for the identification of breast cancer (Rakkapao et al, 2016). Literature points to the importance of different kinds of knowledge for BSE performance: Knowledge about cancer was positively associated with BSE performance in a health-beliefs model (Ardahan et al, 2015).…”

“…Furthermore, different studies have emphasized that knowledge about the disease and risk factors, as well as the presence of close relatives with breast cancer, may affect women's motivation to perform BSE (Garber et al, 2013;Ardahan et al, 2015;Tilaki and Auladi, 2015;Rakkapao et al, 2016).…”