Comparison of Awareness Level about Breast Cancer Risk Factors, Presentations, and Screening Rules and Tools: A Cross-sectional Study on General Female Population

Awareness of breast cancer risk factors, clinical presentations and screening rules and methods may encourage women to use preventive measures more commonly. 

 A total of 691 women from general population were interviewed using a standardized questionnaire. Demographic data, level of awareness about risk factors, presentations and screening the breast cancer and their general perception about the treatment’s efficacy were evaluated.

Of the participants, 45.7% had “good” knowledge about the presentations of breast cancer while the level of awareness was “good” in 19.2% of them in field of risk factors (statistically significant difference). As only about 16% of them knew that women should perform breast self-examination once a month and about 15% of them were aware of the screening role of the annual clinician performed breast examination.

 Most of our participants had statistically significant lower level of knowledge about the risk factors and screening rules and tools of breast cancer than its clinical presentation.