Barriers to Early Detection of Breast Cancer Among Iraqi Women in Baghdad
Keywords:
Breast Cancer, Early detection, Barriers, Identifying, womenAbstract
Introduction: Breast cancer BC is the most common type of malignancy globally and the most prevalent cancer among women in both developed and developing countries. BC is a related to higher mortality rate in Iraqi women. BC in Iraq tends to be diagnosed at an advanced stages and among younger age groups compared to their counterparts in high-income countries. Objectives: identification of the barriers to early detection of breast cancer among Iraqi women in Baghdad. Methods: a cross-sectional descriptive study. Six hundred twenty women were recruited to participate in the study and a special questionnaire was used to obtain data . SPSS 16.0 version was used for analyzing data Results: The mean age of participants was 33.9 ±SD 8.2 and 70.9 % of them were married ,86.4 percent have undergraduate and postgraduate university education. More than forty percent of studied women have poor knowledge and 53.2% have good knowledge about BC risk factors. The main barriers are lack of awareness of: the importance of visiting doctor before the appearance of symptom,about location of clinic,of a specialty to consult first where most of them consult gynecologist, as well as the long time waiting for consultation. Conclusion: there were many barriers hinder the early detection of breast cancer .A systemic health education program about the early detection and screening of BC is required and adding a new BC early detection units in addition to the established units.References
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