Awareness of female nursing, midwifery and para-medicine students of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences in relation to the risk factors, prognosis and prevention of breast cancer

As the most prevalent malignant neoplastic cancer among women, breast cancer stands as the second common cause of mortality inducted by cancer worldwide. Since people’s awareness affects their attitude and in turn positively affects the prevention of breast cancer and its timely prognosis, it helps to cut down on the mortality rate. This latter issue motivated the present study which aimed to investigate the awareness and practice of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedicine students concerning breast cancer at Bandar Abbas University.
As a cross-sectional research, the present study was conducted among university students in the second semester of 2015-16. The sample was selected through a randomized method and finally included 253 subjects. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire whose reliability and validity were already established in some other research. SPSS ver19.0 was used for the statistical analysis of the data.
The majority of subjects (61%) had an average score and only a few (2.3%) achieved a good score. No statistically significant correlation was found between the family background of breast cancer and the awareness score. Half of the subjects (51%) were aware of the breast self-test method but only 37% did it regularly every month. 41.6% visited a doctor annually for a test. Negligence comprised the highest percentage of refraining from the self-test. Feeling no pain (29.2%) was the most common cause of not visiting a doctor. The internet played a key role among the information sources.
Raising awareness contributes to positive behavior and affects the performance of self-test and visiting a doctor. Students’ low level of awareness of how to diagnose breast cancer requires that healthcare staff as well as academics take a step to increase this awareness and practice through proper education and strategies.