Impact of a Breast Health Awareness Activity on the Knowledge Level of the Participants and its Association with Socio-Demographic Features

Abstract

The developing countries have higher mortality rates for breast cancer. A reason for this is presentation at advanced stages due to low levels of public awareness. Activities are arranged by health authorities of developing countries to increase the knowledge of women but their effectiveness has not been evaluated in detail. A multiple choice questionnaire with questions about socio-demographic profile and questions about breast cancer knowledge was designed in local language Urdu, to evaluate the knowledge of the participants before and after an audio visual educational activity in Lahore, Pakistan. Scores of 0-2, 3-5 and 6-8 were ranked as poor, fair and good, respectively. Among 146 participants these scores were achieved by 1%, 55% and 45% before activity and 0%, 16% and 84% after the activity. Overall 66% of participants increased their knowledge score. Younger age, higher education, reliance on television as source of information and being a housewife were associated with better impact of the awareness activity. For the six knowledge related questions 3%, 5%, 11%, 23%, 33% and 44% more participants gave correct answers after the activity. However 6% and 7% fewer participants answered correctly for 2 questions related to the cause and the best prevention for breast cancer. The study indicated that awareness activities are effective to increase the knowledge of women and better impact is associated with higher education and younger age of women. The component analysis showed that the questions and related presentations using medical terms have a negative impact and should not therefore be used. Analysis of activity therefore leads to identification of deficiencies which can be remedied in future.

Breast cancer among young girls: a KAP study conducted in Lahore

“…15 In contrast, a previous study (2010) that surveyed Pakistani women revealed that 46% of the women performed BSE. 16 Our study also revealed, 33.3% performed BSE on monthly basis and 17.3% performed BSE on yearly basis. In comparison, another study in Korea showed monthly performance of BSE was 13.2% although 87% women were aware of BSE.…”

“…18 In addition only 14% of the female students ever received CBE and similar results stating 15% women received CBE were reported by a previous research in Pakistan. 16 However, another study in UAE showed almost half (49.4%) female respondents received CBE. 19 This huge difference between the results of studies of UAE and Pakistan can be linked to socio-cultural differences between the countries, as our report indicates (14.3%) females mentioned embarrassment as the cause of not receiving CBE.…”

Interventions Addressing Barriers to Delayed Cancer Diagnosis in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review

“…Of the seven studies that examined knowledge as the primary outcome, five controlled intervention studies demonstrated improvement in knowledge of health care professionals through video training, presentations, discussions, role‐plays, and learning through the review of academic papers and booklet material . Two quasi‐experimental studies that used audio‐visual educational activities demonstrated significant improvement in knowledge scores for breast cancer .…”

Role of Public Service Awareness Messages in Developing Precautionary Attitude towards Breast Cancer Detection Among Pakistani Women

“…Women education about the danger of breast cancer and importance of screening should be developed for the early detection of breast cancer (Tariq, Khubaib, Imran & Ibrahim, 2011).Attentive actions are operative to increase the information of women and well influence is allied with higher education and youthfulness of women (Khokher et. al., 2015).…”