Breast cancer awareness among the female nursing staff in a tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Context: Breast cancer has high morbidity and mortality rates due to late stage at diagnosis as patients usually present at an advanced stage. There is a lack of awareness about the symptoms and signs of breast cancer as well as the screening practices.Aim: This study evaluates the level of knowledge of screening practices and risk factors in breast cancer among the female nursing staff in a teaching hospital.Setting and Design: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study design.Materials and Method: In this cross-sectional study that was performed in 2019, simple random sampling of 184 participants was done, and their responses of a validated questionnaire of breast cancer risk factor were scored.Statistical Analysis Used: Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data.Results: The mean knowledge and awareness score of the nurses who participated in the study with a total score of 35 is 13.059 with a standard deviation of 4.673 (13.059 ± 4.673). Nearly 12.5% of the nurses (n = 23) had good knowledge, 54.3% of the nurses (n = 100) had an average knowledge, while 33.2% of the nurses (n = 61) had poor knowledge scores in the study conducted.Conclusions: Nurses had limited levels of knowledge about breast cancer and methods of early detection. The screening methods in breast cancer should be stressed during their training period at the institutional level with frequent updating of knowledge by conducting workshops and seminars.