Comparison of Awareness Level about Breast Cancer Risk Factors, Presentations, and Screening Rules and Tools: A Cross-sectional Study on General Female Population

Background & Objective: Awareness of breast cancer risk factors, clinical presentations and screening rules and methods may encourage women to use preventive measures more commonly. Materials & Methods: A total of 691 women from general population were interviewed using a standardized questionnaire. Demographic data, level of awareness about risk factors, presentations and screening the breast cancer and their general perception about the treatment’s efficacy were evaluated. Results: Of the participants, 45.7% had “good” knowledge about the presentations of breast cancer while the level of awareness was “good” in 19.2% of them in field of risk factors (statistically significant difference). As only about 16% of them knew that women should perform breast self-examination once a month and about 15% of them were aware of the screening role of the annual clinician performed breast examination. Conclusion: Most of our participants had statistically significant lower level of knowledge about the risk factors and screening rules and tools of breast cancer than its clinical presentation.