Knowledge and Practice of Breast Self-Examination among Female Undergraduate Regular Students of Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2022

Abstract

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of women each year and affecting countries at all levels of modernization. It is one of the early noticing ways of breast cancer which involves the woman herself looking at and feeling each breast for possible mass, discharge, swelling, dimpling, and other abnormalities. Objective: To assess the knowledge and practice of breast self-examination among female undergraduate students at Addis Ababa University, College of Health Science. Method: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted among female undergraduate students in which departments were selected by using a lottery method and a simple random sampling technique was used to select 214 female students from each department. Data was collected by using a selfadministered, structured questionnaire from April to May 2022. The data was entered into Epidata and analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) window software. Result: A total of 214 respondents were enrolled in the study giving a response rate of 100%. About 133(62.8%) of respondents had a good knowledge of Breast Self- Examination and Breast Cancer. Nearly half 106(48.5%) of the study participants have practiced breast self-examination at least once in their life. There were three main reasons for not doing the examination. Conclusion: This study discovered that more than half of the study participants have a piece of good knowledge about BSE. However, the vast majority of study subjects never engaged in BSE. The concerned bodies should create awareness about breast self-examination.