Impact of breast cancer awareness health campaigns on knowledge of female educationalists of Islamabad and Rawalpindi; an interventional study

Abstract

Introduction: Breast carcinoma is the leading cause of cancer in women worldwide. WHO statistics show 1.2 million new cases every year. Pakistan reports nearly 40,000 lives from Breast Cancer annually.

Objective: To evaluate existing awareness levels regarding breast cancer among female educationalists in twin cities and to counsel the participants about diagnostic tools such as mammographic-screening and breast self-examination

Methodology: The study design was an interventional community trial and was conducted on female teachers aged 30-60 years. Data was collected by a questionnaire, given before and after the interactive session to evaluate its impacts. SPSS Version 23 was used for data entry analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the quantitative and qualitative variables. McNemar’s test was applied for this. P values less than 0.05 were considered significant.

Results: Total number of participants was 106 women with a median age of 43.3 years (range of age 31-54 years). Before intervening, 67 (63.2%) participants had no knowledge of mammographic-screening and 15 (14.2%) participants didn’t know the definitive way of diagnosing it. 2 After intervention, mammogram was selected to be the definitive way of diagnosing breast cancer by 91 (85.8%) participants. 91(85.8%) participants would encourage close family and friends to get screened. 104 (98.1%) of women had become familiar with technique of self-examination, as compared to 63 (59.4%) before.

Conclusion: Misconceptions about risk factors, screening methods and diagnostic procedures were identified and elucidated. This encouraged participants to start performing regular self-exams and get mammograms.