Breast Self Examination- A Necessary Preventive Tool: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice among Nurses in Tabuk Region, Saudi Arabia

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in females. It accounts for about 22% of all new cancers in women. In Saudi Arabia, the number of new cases of cancer is 2741 in 2014, including about 19.9% of breast cancer in women that is ranked first figures.1 It has been demonstrated that early detection and screening for breast cancer could lead to a reduction in breast cancer mortality. One of the main recognized methods of screening is Breast Self Examination (BSE). Addressing the important role of nurses in that regard is an essential preventive tool.Objectives: To assess the level of Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP) of nurses regarding the relevant preventive and applied aspects of BSE in hospitals and Primary Health Care (PHC) centers; and to propose a truthful quality BSE improvement training program for the studied nurses. Subjects and Methods: A cross-sectional analytic research design was chosen to investigate the current research problem. The multi-stage random sampling technique has been applied to recruit a sample size of 152 nurses. A self-administered questionnaire has been used and covered 30 significant BSE dependant variables and they were classified into knowledge (10), attitudes (10) and practice (10) components. The questionnaire has been tested for its validity and reliability. Data have been managed using SPSS v.22.Results: The mean age and average years of experience of the studied nurses were 33.62±8.45 and 8.18±5.65 respectively. The majority of nurses have favorable attitudes (69.34%), good degree of knowledge (81.42%) and satisfactory practice (70.26%) regarding BSE. The essential substandard KAP areas have been identified and ranked.Conclusion: Continuous medical education and in-service training of nurses on the practical aspects of early detection of breast cancer are greatly needed and to be well incorporated within the national protocol of the Saudi ministry of health.Reference: 1. Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, National Campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness, National Campaign for Breast Cancer Awareness. (http://www.moh.gov.sa/en/HealthAwareness/ Campaigns/ Breastcancer/Pages/stat.aspx).Acknowledgments: Dr Abd-Alla Al-Temani, Prof Ahmed Eltobgy and Dr Ibrahiem Mubarak for supervising this research project.