The factors influencing on knowledge, attitudes, and practices in women with breast cancer referring to health centers of Ilam in 2013

Background and aims: The mortality rate for breast cancer is directly related to the stage of disease at diagnosis. The present study was aimed to determine the factors influencing on knowledge, attitudes, and practices in women with breast cancer and its screening methods. Methods: In a cross- sectional study, we evaluated 383 women who referred to health centers of Ilam. Sampling was done in 2 stages. The inclusion criteria were included healthy women with minimum education level. Data were collected by a two-section questionnaire including demographic characteristics and knowledge, attitudes and practices of women with the breast cancer and its screening methods. Data were analyzed using chi-square and t-test in SPSS software. The level of significance was considered P<0.05. Results: The Mean ± SD knowledge score was 22.43±11.01. The Mean ± SD attitude and performance score were 29.08±3.34 and 3.52±1.66, respectively. There was a significant correlation between age, occupation and education with knowledge, attitude and practice of women with breast cancer and its screening methods (P<0.05). There was no significant relationship among the marital status, history of benign breast disease and family history with knowledge, attitudes and practices of breast cancer and screening methods, (P>0.05). Conclusion: Half of the participants had good knowledge about breast cancer and screening procedures, but, all the participants with good knowledge had not good practice. Therefore, further training is necessary to enhance awareness and more research should be conducted to identify barriers to women's performance.