Health Beliefs of Women Working at University on the Early Diagnosis in Breast Cancer and the Factors Influencing Health Beliefs

Abstract

Background: Women’s health beliefs on early diagnosis is highly important for diagnosis of breast cancer. Objectives: This study aims to determine the health beliefs of women working at a university on the early diagnosis in breast cancer and the factors affecting their health beliefs. Methods: 472 women working at a university constituted the universe and 235 women that agreed to participate constituted the sample of this descriptive study. Data was collected between 28 January 2016 and 20 March 2017 by using "Descriptive Characteristics Form" and "Champion’s Health Belief Model Scale (CHBMS)". We obtained permission from the institution and the ethics board and used descriptive analysis, Mann-Whitney U Test and Kruskal-Wallis test for data analysis. Results: More than half of the women had mammography and Clinical Breast Examination (CBE), and most of them performed the Breast Self-Examination (BSE). On average, the participants scored high from the confidence and the health motivation subscales, low from the susceptibility and the barriers to BSE subscales, and obtained medium scores from the seriousness and the benefits of BSE subscales of the CHBMS. Scores obtained from the barriers to BSE subscale was higher for the women working at the administrative departments, compared to the women working at academic departments. We found a statistically significant difference between the participants that performed and did not perform the BSE in terms of the subscales of susceptibility and seriousness (p<.05). Furthermore, the scores obtained by the participants that had and did not have mammography from the subscales of the benefits of BSE and the confidence subscales were statistically significantly different (p<.05). Conclusion: This study found that the confidence and health motivation perceptions of the participants on early diagnosis methods of breast cancer were high. Besides, their perceptions on seriousness and the benefits of the BSE were at adequate levels. Furthermore, their perception of susceptibility was at medium levels. Finally, perceptions of the women working at the administrative departments on the barriers to BSE were higher than the participant women working at academic departments. © 2019, Dokuz Eylul University. All rights reserved.