Breast cancer knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and screening efforts by micro-community of advanced breast cancer patients in Ghana
The burden of breast cancer is greater in Ghana because most women present with advanced disease with poor prognostic outcomes. A person's health beliefs, experiences, exposures, and disease representation have been noted to influence his/her health behavior. We examined whether knowing someone...
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| Format: | Book |
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Elsevier,
2019-01-01T00:00:00Z.
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| Summary: | The burden of breast cancer is greater in Ghana because most women present with advanced disease with poor prognostic outcomes. A person's health beliefs, experiences, exposures, and disease representation have been noted to influence his/her health behavior. We examined whether knowing someone who has an advanced breast cancer would influence knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and practices of self and clinical breast-examination. We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional survey of 67 women, who were purposively sampled based on relation, through patients receiving palliative care services at a tertiary healthcare facility. Participants were non-blood relation of the patients and hence, referred to as patients' micro-community. Data were collected from January to June 2018, using an adapted and adopted questionnaire and analyzed in R software version 3.5.1.3. Statistical significance was based on P-value < 0.05. The penalized maximum likelihood logistic regression was employed to examine study participants' knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and practices towards breast cancer with various sociodemographic variables. All participants agreed to positive knowledge and attitude towards breast cancer screening which reflected in their breast self-examination, but the influence of these positive features was unclear in their clinical breast-examination practices. A significant association was shown between both self and clinical breast examination practices and most of the demographical features. This study highlights a significant value of social relationships and interactions between advanced breast cancer patients and other women in their social networks in terms of fostering positive knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs. A need to nurture the social networks of advanced breast cancer patients in is paramount. Keywords: Breast cancer, Knowledge, Beliefs and attitudes, Breast screening practices, Micro-community, Ghanaian women |
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| Item Description: | 2214-1391 10.1016/j.ijans.2019.100155 |