Women's prospect of breast cancer early detection behavior: a qualitative research

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among Iranian women. Early diagnosis of the disease is vitally important in successful treating of it and reducing its mortality and care-cost burden. In our country,the major causes of mortality and other unfavorable complications of the disease are due to late referring of women. So far, the nature of this behavior has not been studied. The present qualitative study was done on a number of Tehran women to clarify the concepts of breast cancer control and prevention; and factors affecting this procedure. A content analysis with a qualitative approach (Grounded Theory) was conducted in depth on 31 women through semi-structured (individual and group) interviews. Data collection continued to saturation point. Data analysis was done by means of constant comparative analysis method, using theoretical sampling and constant comparison analysis The study was done on 31 females aged 49±8.05, of whom 54.8% were in employment and 45.1% were housewives. Education level was average in 48.3% of the cases and 27% of them were married. Individual and social factors were the two effective categories that shaped the women’s behavior, which regarded women’s early detecting behavior and respective factors were classified into 3 categories: Inappropriate attitude toward behavior, Inadequate risk-perception, and inefficient perceived data. The mentioned concepts are the same obstacles and frustrations which may occur in detecting breast-cancer behavioral procedure, together with a shade of subjective behavior. Controlling is a multidimensional concept which has individual and social aspects but individual intentional rate is higher. After final analysis of the obtained data, inappropriate attitude towards control and prevention of breast cancer was taken as the central variable and conscious persuasion was recognized as the corrective factor. Health promotion of women, who make up half of the active population of the country, is one of the requirements of stable development and planning appropriate methods to warn women of health risks is among health education missions. The indispensable factor in this respect is attention to women's attitude construct and qualitative studies seem to define behavioral situations better than quantitative methods; and, thus, help planning educational interventions. Therefore, it is suggested that defining the concept of breast-cancer control and prevention according to routine quantitative methods and comparing it with the results of the present study should be taken into account.