Workinesh Daba Seboka
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Title: Assessment of knowledge, attitude and practices on breast cancer and breast self examination among female students, School of Medicine and Health Science, Ambo University, Oromiya Region, Ethiopia
Biography
Biography: Workinesh Daba Seboka
Abstract
Background: In Ethiopia, breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related mortality and morbidity. Level of knowledge, attitude and practices of female university students about breast cancer and breast self-examination is not thoroughly examined.
Objective: The main objective of the present study is to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices on breast cancer and breast self- examination of female students at the School of Medicine and Health Science, Ambo University, 2017.
Methods: Institution based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 204 female students selected from the School of Medicine and Health Science of Ambo University. Excel generated a simple random sampling technique was employed to select the study population using a list of identify cation card number obtained from university registrar. A self- administered questionnaire was used to collect data on socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude and practices. SPSS version 23 was used for data entry and analysis. Descriptive statistics and chi-square tests were computed. All p-values <0.05 are set to determine the statistical association.
Result: Majority of the respondents were aged between 20-24 years with mean (±SD) age 21.5 (±2.82) years. The largest ethnic group was Oromo (57.2%) and Orthodox (44.8%) was the dominant religion. Though the majority of the respondents (95.3%) had information on breast cancer, nearly half of the respondents do not know its hereditary and curable disease if detected early. About 77% of the respondents cited breast self-examination as a method of early detection of breast cancer. Nearly half of the respondents (49%) had good knowledge score and 44.8% of the respondents had a positive attitude towards breast self-examination. However, only one-third of the respondents had practiced the self-examination. In this study, significant association were observed between knowledge and attitude (χ2=10.832, df=1, P=0.001), knowledge and practice (χ2=28.528, df=1, P=0.000), and attitude and practice (χ2=7.184, df=1, P=0.007).