Citation

Mousavi F, Shojaei P, Homasan S (2018) Health Beliefs as Predictors of Breast Self-Examination Behavior. Int J Womens Health Wellness 4:077. doi.org/10.23937/2474-1353/1510077

Copyright

© 2018 Mousavi F, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE | OPEN ACCESS DOI: 10.23937/2474-1353/1510077

Health Beliefs as Predictors of Breast Self-Examination Behavior

Fatemeh Mousavi1, Parisa Shojaei1* and Sam Homasan2

1Department of Community & Preventive Medicine, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Tehran Medical Science Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

2Medical student, Tehran Medical Science Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the frequency of getting such health screenings as breast self-examination among a group of women and to identify the role of health beliefs in predicting breast self-examination (BSE).

Methods

The data were collected from a convenience sample of 225 women covered of the clinics in northwest of Tehran. The participants completed the demographic questions and Champion Health Beliefs Scale (CHBS) designed to measure patients' perception on breast self-examination of breast cancer screening. Also answered The Breast Cancer Knowledge Test (BCKT) that was applied to measure participants' knowledge.

Results

The results indicated that 52% of women before did Breast Self-Examination and had poor knowledge on breast cancer. Most disagree about questions of Champion Health Beliefs Scale was with phrase of "I do not check because the leave the condition on God" and most agree with "Early detection leads less surgical intervention and best healing". Logistic regression showed that educational status, breastfeeding and the perceived barriers significantly predicted BSE (P value < 0.05).

Conclusion

The study revealed that the HBM constructs are able to predict BSE behavior. Among these constructs, perceived barriers was the most important predictor of the behavior. Interventions based on the constructs of perceived barriers and educational interventions are recommended for increasing women's regular screening for breast cancer.