Knowledge and practices of women in Iraqi universities on breast self examination

This study evaluated the knowledge and practice of breast self-examination (BSE), among a sample of educated Iraqi women. The study sample comprised 858 women aged 18-62 years affiliated to 6 major Iraqi universities, categorized according to occupation as teaching staff (11.5%), administrative staff (18.0%) and students (70.5%). Data were collected by a self-completed questionnaire. In all, 93.9% of the women had heard about BSE, the main source of information was television (39.9%), doctors (18.4%) and the awareness campaign of the Iraqi National Breast Cancer Research Programme (11.6%). Only 53.9% of the women practised BSE; the most common excuses by those that did not were lack of knowledge of the significance of BSE (42.0%) and lack of confidence in their ability to perform BSE (39.5%). Just over 38% did not seek medical advice if they experienced signs/symptoms of breast disease, attributing that to reasons of timidity, lack of time or fear of discovering cancer. The majority (88%) of the women were willing to instruct others in BSE (aftertraining), 40% of whom were interested in collaborating with the National Breast Cancer Awareness Programme in Iraq.