The effects of education on breast self-examination knowledge,attitude, and practice among the female employees of Birjand University

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. Early diagnosis of breast cancer is extremely effective in its treatment. The aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of education on breast self-examination knowledge, attitude, and practice among female employees of Birjand University, Birjand, Iran. This one-group pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was conducted in 2012 on 89 female employees of Birjand University who agreed to participate in the study. A three-part researcher-made questionnaire was used for data collection. The first part was a demographic questionnaire containing items such as age, marital status, and education, history of common breast problems, history of breast self-examination, and history of breast cancer among first-degree relatives. The second and the third parts were related to breast self-examination knowledge (20 items) and attitude (ten items). An educational program was implemented for the participants by a pathologist. Educations were provided in a 90-minute session through presenting a lecture, distributing pamphlets, showing a video clip, and using the question-and-answer method. The knowledge and the attitude questionnaires were completed by the participants both before and two months after the study intervention. The data were analyzed by using the SPSS software (v. 15.0) and through performing the Wilcoxon, the Kruskal-Wallis, the Man-Whitney U, and the McNemar’s tests. P values of less than 0.05 were considered as significant. Among 89 participating women, 81 (91%) were married. Participants’ average age was 39.2±7.3 years. Compared with the pretest readings, the means of women’s breast self-examination knowledge and attitude significantly increased after the intervention (P<0.001). Moreover, after the study, there was a significant difference among women with different educational status regarding the mean scores of knowledge and attitude. However, the differences among different age and gender groups were not significant. The pretest-posttest mean differences of knowledge and attitude were also not significantly related with women’s other demographic characteristics. Based on the findings of the present study, education can be effective in improving women’s knowledge and attitude about breast cancer screening methods. Consequently, running educational programs is recommended for effective prevention and prompt treatment of breast cancer.