Breast cancer prevention: what women think about the illness, its risks and self-care

Abstract

Background: Early detection of breast cancer (BC) is important to reduce mortality rates. To prevent BC, women should adopt self-care behaviors. This study aimed at examining risk and illness perception and self-care of healthy women regarding breast cancer. Methods: Participants were 211 women (M = 59.11 years, SD = 8.54) and with no personal history of the illness, selected by convenience. Measures were a sociodemographic, clinical and health behavior questionnaire, illness perception and risk perception questionnaires. Nonparametric statistics (Spearman) was employed to analyze the relationship between illness perception, risk perception and sociodemographic variables. The open answers to the causes of the illness were classified according to the content analysis. Results: We found a relationship between risk and illness perception and self-care in healthy women regarding BC. It was identified that women had reasonable illness coherence (M = 3.18) and considered the illness more timeline chronic than timeline acute (M = 3.22), reasonable timeline cyclical (M = 3.56), with severe consequences for health (M = 4.22), and reasonably threatening (M = 3.15). Conclusions: BC and risk perception and self-care are interrelated variables among healthy women.