BREAST CANCER KNOWLEDGE AND SCREENING PRACTICES AMONG FEMALE SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN IBADAN NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, IBADAN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Breast Cancer (BC) is the most common type of cancer in women worldwide. Nigeria has the highest number of patients with advanced primary breast cancer which is often associated with high mortality. Teachers as role models and change agents may influence routine screening by young females under their tutelage but few studies exist on knowledge of BC and screening practices among them. This study was designed to investigate knowledge of breast cancer and screening practices of female Senior Secondary School (SSS) teachers in Ibadan. The study was cross-sectional in design and involved all the 411 female SSS teachers in Ibadan North Local Government Area. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to asses breast cancer awareness, knowledge of BC; self reported practice of Self Breast Examination (SBE), Clinical Breast Examination (CBE) and Mammography as well as factors influencing screening practices. Knowledge of BC was measured using a 30-point scale with 0-14 poor, 15-21 fair, and 22-30 good knowledge of BC respectively. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square test were used to analyse data and level of statistical significance was set at p=0.05. The response rate was 74.7%. Respondents' mean age and years in service were 39.8±8.5 and 12.0±8.5 years respectively. Majority of the respondents (79.8%) were married, 70.0% had first degrees and 46.0% had masters degrees, while 78.8% were class teachers. Majority (93.2%) had heard of BC and the leading sources of information were television (66.4%), radio (42.0%) and health care providers (32.6%). Some (42.7%) knew someone who practiced SBE while 24.1% and 23.8% knew someone that had gone for CBE and mammography respectively. Most (76.2%) claimed to have heard about SBE and 10.7% knew the appropriate age for commencing SBE. The mean knowledge score of BC was 8.8 ± 4.5. About 86.3% had poor knowledge, 13.0% had fair knowledge and 0.7% had good knowledge of BC. Some respondents believed that BC could be cured (42.3%) and 64.5% believed that BC was a disease of young girls.There was no statistically significant difference in the knowledge of BC and the age of respondents. Out of the 111 respondents who had ever practiced SBE only 27.6% examined their breast monthly. Of the 73 and 163 respondents who have heard of mammography and CBE 1.6% and 4.6% had ever gone for either of the screening respectively. Sixty seven percent of the respondents were willing to be screened for BC if offered the opportunity, 34.8% did not practice BC screening because they did not know how it is done, 20.5% did not feel the need to perform screening once there are no symptoms of BC and 36.2% did not like CBE. Awareness of breast cancer was high; knowledge was poor while screening practices was low. There is a need to organize series of health education programmes aimed at improving knowledge of breast cancer among female teachers with emphasis on the importance of practicing self-breast examination, clinical breast examination and mammography.