Detect Early Be Safe–Care for Mother (DEBS-CaM) project: School-based interventions to improve awareness and screening for breast cancer among the young mothers of Kerala.

Abstract

e13570 Background: The prognosis rate among the breast cancer patients was less than 50% in India when compared to European countries due to the late diagnosis and most of them diagnosed at an advanced stage of disease. Early detection can reduce the risk of advancement of disease by 30%. There is an immediate need to target both younger population to empower the women with the knowledge on their breast cancer risk and self-breast examination (SBE). So the project aimed to examine the efficacy of a Brief Motivational Intervention (BMI) and Student based Parental intervention (SBPI) based on motivational interviewing as a universal preventive and early diagnosis interventions to fight against breast cancer among the school students using a randomized factorial design. Methods: Daughters and Mothers are always a good dyads for doing an personal health intervention. Since it is a ‘matter of closeness’, a mother and a daughter can easily communicate, intervene and ensure the act of doing in self breast examination.We identified 85 schools (including the Junior high and senior high schools in the northern region of Kerala. The female resource person from the MVR Cancer Centre & Research Institute delivered the awareness session on risk factors of breast cancer breast and SBE. So the attendees demonstrated the SBEs to their mothers and ensure the act of doing monthly. The study utilized a 2 × 2 × 3 factorial design, crossing a BMI; (yes, no) and SBPI (yes, no), with one within-subjects factor (Time; baseline and 10 months). Over 10 months, we recruited cohorts of parent-student dyads and randomize by dyad to one of four experimental conditions: BMI only and BMI and SBPI only. We did the randomization by computer algorithm to ensure that the experimental conditions will balance on prognostic indicators of students and their mother’s on breast cancer risk and including waist to hip ratio, frequency of SBE, healthy dietary intake and physically active. Results: Baseline data collected from students and parents during the summer prior to college matriculation. Follow-ups occurred at 10 months post-baseline for parents in the face to face interview with students at their schools. We found 17% of mothers detected any kind of breast abnormalities and among that, 68% of mothers went for further detailed diagnostic tests. Conclusions: It is an innovative approach incorporating the principles of primary prevention and early detection for the breast cancer among the young mothers of Kerala.