Breast cancer risk, Knowledge, Attitude and Practicing Breast Self-Examination of women: Case Study in Chanthaburi Province

Abstract

         The purposes of this study were the regular Breast Self-Examination capabilities of women age between 30-70 years old using muti-criteria sampling method. The data were collected from 3 groups including 30 public health officers who work in district health promotion hospital, 60 Village Health Volunteers who have been trained as regular Breast Self-Examination specialist and 128 women age between 30-70 years old in Thamai and Khanghangmaew district, Chanthaburi province.  The research was conducted using a quantitative questionnaire and Breast Implants between April 2014–March 2016. During two years period, the data collection was devided into 3 phases. The first phase was done between 13-14 October 2014 during the training and capacity building program of public health officers. The data collection of Village Health Volunteers capabilities were done between February–March 2015 and the last phase of data collection were done on August 2015. All data were analyzed using simple statistic basis such as percentage, mean and standard deviations. The result indicated that all three groups had relatively good basic knowledge about breast cancer. However, there were an exception for a little knowledge in some topics such as 1) the risk of breast cancer is higher for the person who had the first menstruation early, 2) woman who give a birth over the age of 30 years have a greater chance of developing breast cancer and 3) overweight or obesity are at higher risk of developing breast cancer. The result also showed that women aged 30-70 years and of village health volunteers have a good attitude to breast self-examination but there were agree or uncertainly agree in some topic such as 1) Breast examination using mammography device will have the chance of breast cancer from radiation, 2) women who found a lump in the breast examination by a Mammogram are the breast cancer patients. The assessment of the Regular Breast Self-Examination among women aged 30-70 years and Village Health volunteers found that only 24.9 % were able to examine breast and nipple correctly, 25.4% knew the 6 steps of  Breast Self-Examination correctly and only 2.5% of them that are able to locate and specify the number of lumps when examine the breast implants. Collarbone and armpit area were the area that had lowest detection rate. The recommendations for further action from the results of this study is, 1) increase the health promotion campaign and promote risk factor for breast cancerto change the altitude  and increase a favorable breast self-examination continuously, 2) provide the training program to develop the knowledge and correctly skills of breast cancer self-examination for the Village Health volunteers, 3) should conducting the random survey of women aged 30-70 years to promote the six steps of nipple and breast self-examination and provide the examination record for themcontinuously.