the correlation between the family levels of socioeconomic status and stage at diagnosis of breast cancer

background : stage at diagnosis is one of the most important prognostic factors for most of the cancers like breast cancer. studies have found that the rate of late-stage diagnosis of breast cancer among women with lower socioeconomic status is more than the others. the aim of this study was investigating the relationship between family levels of socioeconomic status and stage at diagnosis of breast cancer. methods : this cross-sectional, descriptive study conducted on 526 patients who were suffering from breast cancer and registered in cancer research center of shahid beheshti university of medical sciences from march 2008 to december 2013. a reliable and valid questionnaire about family levels of socioeconomic status filled by interviewing the patients via phone. for analyzing the data, multinomial logistic regression, kendal tau-b correlation coefficient and contingency coefficient tests were executed by spss19. results : the results indicated that the mean age of the patients was 48.30 (s.d. = 11.41). there was a significant relationship between stage at diagnosis of breast cancer and family levels of socioeconomic status at the time of diagnosis (p= 0.024). also, the relationship between stage at diagnosis and place of living (living in tehran or not) was significant (p= 0.044). in the multiple logistic regressions, these associations were significant. there wasn’t any significant relationship between stage of diagnosis of breast cancer and age, marital status and family history. conclusion : owing to the results of this study, paying attention to the family socioeconomic status as an important variable in stage at diagnosis of breast cancer among iranian women is important and presenting preventing plans related to this topic seems necessary.