Knowledge and Behavior Among Women Referring to Health Care Institutions Screening for Breast Cancer in the South of Iran

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is the most widespread type of cancer of women throughout the world. The likelihood of its treatment can be increased by screening and early detection in the early stages. The present study aimed to determine the knowledge and behavior of women referred to health care institutes of Bandar Abbas regarding screening for breast cancer. Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 370 women who referred to Bandar Abbas health care centers and were selected by the cluster sampling technique. A questionnaire containing demographic characteristics, knowledge assessment, and performance evaluation was used to collect the required data. The minimum and maximum scores were within the range of 0-20 and 0-7 for wise questions and performance, respectively. Finally, data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, t test, along with chi-square and analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests using SPSS16. Results: The mean age of women was 55.35 ± 2.27 years. In addition, 298 (80.5%) and 72 (19.4%) of them were married and single, respectively. The mean knowledge score was 12.48 ± 3.85 and the mean score was 2.9 ± 2.29 as well. Finally, there was a significant relationship between the knowledge and behavior of the subjects (P<0.001). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, regular education programs are suggested to increase women’s knowledge. Thus, their performance is hoped to increase by extending their level of knowledge.