Assessment of the breast cancer risk factors among women of reproductive age: A cross sectional study in Chottrogram, Bangladesh.

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is one of the common cancers in the world. The prevalence of this cancer is increasing at a rate that now-a-days it is being considered as the second leading cause of death in people. The lack of awareness regarding the risk factor is mainly responsible behind this high prevalence where more than half of the women are still unaware about the risk factor, symptoms, screening method of breast cancer. Thus, this study aims to enhance the knowledge level of women in different stages and also to promote different methods to prevent breast cancer.

Methodology: A hospital based cross sectional study was used in this research. By using a semi- structured questionnaire, data was collected from participants. A total of 357 women, aged

between 15-55 years old and attending several reproductive health care facilities, were interviewed in this study. Both open and close ended questions were included in the questionnaires. A consent form was given to each participant before data collection. In analyzing the data, SPSS software

was used. The frequency and percentage were calculated to see the distribution of socio- demographic variables, knowledge level and Pearson’s Chi-squared or fisher exact tests were used

in order to assess the associations with a p-value 0.05 considered statistically significant.

Result: A total of 357 participants were taken for the study out of which 184 women were from urban areas and 174 were from rural sides. Although nearly three-fourth of the participants heard of breast cancer, the knowledge and awareness level regarding breast cancer is less than 50% in Bangladesh. Neighborhood and relatives were the most common source of information for the women who have heard about breast cancer. Almost, 40.1% of women believe that breast cancer can be detected at an early age and 45.4% think it is curable and only 11.66% of women identified that no breast feeding as a risk factor. No significant association was found between other

Mehejabin 6 sociodemographic variables and the risk factors related to menopause obesity and oral contraceptive.

Discussion: This current study shows that, although the majority of the participants have heard about breast cancer, due to the lack of proper awareness, social stigma and lack of proper dissemination many women do not have proper knowledge regarding the risk factor, symptoms and different preventive methods of breast cancer. As a result of which, they knowingly or unknowingly practice those practices which may increase the risk of developing breast cancer for them. Although this study is limited in scale, this study would contribute to different interventions which may increase the knowledge and awareness of women about different factors of breast cancer.

Conclusion: Breast cancer is a curse in our society which takes away millions of people’s lives every year. In order to prevent this, people need to be more aware about this world-wide problem. However, people from all stages do not have proper facilities to know more and more about this disease which eventually make them more vulnerable to develop this cancer. In these circumstances, the government should take proper intervention so that people from all stages can know about it. Health-care professionals might play a significant role in promoting good practices especially promoting self-assessment and other screening programs