A Study on Effect of a Health Education Intervention Program about Breast Cancer and Breast Self-Examination among Nursing Professionals

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) normally shows a slow development rate, which means that successful treatment is easily achievable if the cancer is detected in its early stages. The purpose of this research was to investigate the health beliefs of nursing faculty about breast cancer and breast self-examination (BSE) and to enhance their knowledge of the same. A 60-minute, health educational study was performed for 541 nurses, age 16 to 60 years, from January to July 2019. A self-administered questionnaire was used before the intervention and immediately after the intervention. An average of 48.25% of the participants had knowledge of the signs, symptoms and risk factors of breast cancer. 42.7% participants were "too busy" to seek medical help. Only 17.2% of the respondents knew about the method of breast self-examination (BSE) in pre intervention evaluation. Out of 36 items, 35 of them witnessed a significant increase in nursing student's knowledge and attitude regarding BSE and breast cancer after the intervention. The study subjects' awareness had increased after post intervention, which exhibits that the training plan, was successful. It is a necessity for female healthcare professionals, who are expected to be informed and responsible health care professionals, to increase their awareness in regard to breast cancer and techniques of Breast Self-Examination and also to ensure that they provide worthy examples for others to follow.