Breast Cancer Risk Perception and Screening Behaviors of Iranian Women

Previous studies have shown that breast cancer (BC) risk perception could be a motivation for screening behaviors. This study was conducted to compare the level of BC risk perception of women aged between 30-40 and 41-60 years, and to determine the factors affecting screening behaviors and examine the association between BC risk perception and BC screening behaviors.

This cross-sectional study was performed using a Rutherford instrument for BC risk perception on 754 women aged 30 to 60 years with no history of BC in 2018. The questionnaire included demographic information, risk factors of BC, screening practice, and risk perception of BC. The association between screening behaviors with women’s BC risk perception and some other variables were assessed utilizing pathway analysis method with the Structural equation modeling (SEM), which summarized the results by odds ratio index.

The mean score of BC risk perception was 28.9±24.3, which was 31.2±24.4 in women aged 30 to 40 and 25.9±23.9 in women aged 41 to 60 years (P value = 0.003). The association between mammography with risk perception was (OR:1 [95%CI: 0.9, 1]). According to this study, the most important variables affecting mammography were increased clinical examination (OR: 34.6 [95%CI: 16.3, 73.7]), age (OR: 8.8 [95%CI: 4.9,16]), family history of breast cancer (OR: 4 [95%CI: 1.3, 12.9]), and higher education level ([OR: 1.4[95%CI: 1.1,1.9]).

The results of our study indicated that younger women had higher BC risk perception. BC risk perception was not found to have any direct effects on mammography. This survey revealed that physicians had an important role in encouraging women to perform mammography.