Abstract :
Introduction: Breast cancer has emerged as a major public health problem and early detection helps in bringing down the burden. Even thoughMammography is the best choice for screening, it is expensive and requires skilled personnel. Breast Self-Examination (BSE) is important in early detection and for mass awareness especially in resource poor countries. Nurses and midwives constitute major contributors in delivering health care and education and if these are empowered and trained they can convince women to perform BSE. Various studies conducted on nurses BSE practice show that the nurses are generally ineffective practitioners of BSE and that their frequency of BSE teaching is low.
Aim and Methods: To assess the knowledge and practice of effective BSE among female nurses. A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted among 90 female nurses working in a tertiary care hospital.
A self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and practice of BSE. Written consent was taken from the participants. Data was collected on the socio demographic information, knowledge and practice of BSE. Data was analysed using SPSS version 16.
Results: Knowledge: 55.6% of the nurses said that BSE should be performed once in 6 months, 18.9% felt that it should be performed monthly. 42.2% of the nurses said that BSE has no relation to menstrual cycle. 86.7% of nurses said that BSE should be performed in standing up position and the first source of information was BSE awareness programmes. Practice 75.6% nurses practiced BSE but only 33.3% were effectively practicing BSE. 50% of the nurses said that they were confident in performing BSE. The major reasons for practicing were, early detection has a great value and fear of Breast cancer. The major reasons
for not practicing BSE were, afraid I will find something 54.5%.
Conclusion: The study indicates that nurses had inadequate knowledge about BSE. Practice of BSE was high but very few practiced it effectively.
Keyword :
Breast self examination, Knowledge and practice.