Breast Cancer Screening Barriers among Women in Nablus Governorate
Mon, 2016-02-15 14:42 — Mariam Al-Tell
Abstract:
Introduction:
Breast cancer is still one of the major health problems not only in
Palestine but also all over the world. It is one of the Non Communicable
Diseases (NCD) that form a biggest challenge and major public health
problem that most countries especially the developing countries face.
Knowing
the breast cancer screening barriers that prevent women from performing
breast cancer early screening can increase the chance of early
detection and this can be minimize the occurrence of disease and related
deaths.
Objectives: The main objective was to assess the barriers that prevent women from performing breast cancer screening tests.
Method:
A convenient sample method including 269 women aged from 30-60 years
old who lived in Nablus Governorate was used. Also a purposive sample
method was used to select women’s social centers from Nablus city, two
villages (Beit Furik, Beita) and Askar refugee camp. Participants filled
in self-administrated questionnaire, and data analysis was done by
using SPSS.
Results:
The percentage of the participants who knew mammogram, CBE and BSE
tests (59.5%), (47.6%) and (67.3%) respectively. Moreover, the
percentages of participants who did not perform mammogram and CBE tests
were (60.2%) and (74.0%) respectively.
The
most common barriers that prevented women from performing breast cancer
screening tests were “fear of suffering cancer pains” and “changing
physical appearance”, “financial cost”, “afraid of having cancer”, “shy
of applying the tests” and “it takes time to conducting regularly” and
“test may cause pain”. Also, there were a significant relationships
between mammogram barriers and place of residency (P values .046),
between BSE and educational status (P values .021), between the age and
geographical and financial barriers (p value.012), (p value.001)
respectively, and between the educational status and geographical and
financial barriers (p value.002), (p value.001) respectively.
Recommendation: increase women’s knowledge about breast cancer screening tests, and to have a female physician in every clinic.
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