Needs Assessment of Educational Content for Breast Cancer Education at Community Level from the Viewpoint of Non-affected Women

Breast cancer is the most common female cancer, and early diagnosis is possible in case the patients seeks medical attention before appearance of any symptom, or at first clinical presentation. For this, the patient must be aware of the subject and not to be afraid of the diagnosis, but women have many unanswered questions about this cancer. In this study, we decided to ask the patients themselves about their information needs and the questions they want to be answered during the training.

Women attending different clinics of Arash Women's Hospital were asked to note all the questions they would like to be approached in a breast cancer educational program in a form. This was continued until there was no new question in 15 consecutive forms.

A total of 60 patients were included in the study. The average number of questions in each form was 3 (1 to 14), with a total of 194 questions. The questions were matched and categorized according to common scientific terms, which resulted in 63 questions in 5 categories.

Many studies have been conducted on breast cancer education, but none have addressed patients' own questions. This study shows that women have many questions about breast cancer that need to be addressed in educational programs. The authors suggest using the results of this study to develop educational packages as well as conducting similar research at multi-center levels.