A study on awareness toward the early detection of breast cancer on nursing staff in civil hospital, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

• Main Authors: Jaydip R Oza, Jagruti D Prajapati, Rohit Ram
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine 2011-01-01
• Series: Healthline
• Subjects: breast cancer; early detection
• Online Access: http://iapsmgc.org/ov5v2i1.pdf

Background: Breast cancer accounts for about 20% cancers in Indian women. The nurses can play an important role in educating women through specially designed educational programme in the clinical setting, as well as through community out reach strategies that suit our social & cultural settings. Objective: The purpose of this study was to know the knowledge, attitude & practices of nursing staff towards the early detection of breast cancer. Method: A cross sectional study was carried out in civil hospital Ahmedabad during September 2008. 250 nurses were selected out of total staff of 1000 nurses. Data was collected by pretested questionnaire. Data entry and analysis were done in Epi info version 3.4 Results: The results of the study indicated that 74% of the nurses knew that early detection of breast is possible.71% of the nurses would like to go for early detection by mammography. Only 7.2% of nurses had undergone investigation for early detection. 96% of nurses want information regarding the breast cancer and most them by the mean of seminar and workshop. Conclusion: Though knowledge regarding early detection was satisfactory but practice was very poor. There is need to create awareness & periodic screening.