Hurst Cameron Paul, Promthet Supannee, Rakkapao Nitchamon
QIMR Berghofer medical Research Institute, Queensland, Australia.
Faculty of Public Health, Lampang Campus, Thammasat University, Lampang, Thailand. Email:
Asian Pac J Cancer Prev. 2019 Jun 1;20(6):1825-1831. doi: 10.31557/APJCP.2019.20.6.1825.
Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide. In south-east Asia, both the incidence and mortality rates of breast cancer are on the rise, and the latter is likely due to the limited access to large-scale community screening program in these resource-limited countries. Breast cancer awareness is an important tool which may, through increasing breast self-examination and the seeking of clinical examination, reduce breast cancer mortality. Investigating factors associated with breast cancer awareness of women is likely to help identify those at risk, and provide insights into developing effective health promotion interventions. Objective: To investigate factors associated with breast cancer awareness in Thai women. Methods: A cross-sectional sample of Thai women aged 20-64 years was collected during August to October, 2015 from two provinces of southern Thailand (Surat Thani and Songkla). A questionnaire including the Breast Cancer Awareness Scale along with demographic characteristics was administered and Proportional Odds Logistic regression was then used to investigate factors associated with breast cancer awareness. Results: In total, 660 Thai women participated in this study. Factors most often associated with the various breast cancer awareness domains were age and rurality. While rural women had poorer knowledge of breast cancer signs and symptoms, they also had lower levels of perceived barriers and considerably better breast cancer awareness behaviors. Conclusion: Despite lower knowledge of breast cancer risk factors and no evidence of better knowledge of signs and symptoms, we found rural Thai women had considerably better breast cancer awareness behavior. This may be due to these women’s lower levels of perceived barriers to breast cancer screening services. Indeed this suggests, at least in Thai women, that interventions aimed at lowering perceived barriers rather than enhancing disease knowledge may be more successful in engaging women with breast cancer screening services and increasing breast self-examination.
乳腺癌是全球女性中最常见的癌症。在东南亚，乳腺癌的发病率和死亡率均呈上升趋势，后者可能是由于这些资源有限的国家难以开展大规模社区筛查项目。提高乳腺癌意识是一项重要工具，可通过增加乳房自我检查和寻求临床检查来降低乳腺癌死亡率。调查与女性乳腺癌意识相关的因素可能有助于识别高危人群，并为制定有效的健康促进干预措施提供见解。目的：调查泰国女性乳腺癌意识的相关因素。方法：2015年8月至10月期间，从泰国南部的两个省份（素叻他尼府和宋卡府）收集了20-64岁泰国女性的横断面样本。发放了一份包含乳腺癌意识量表以及人口统计学特征的问卷，然后使用比例优势逻辑回归来调查与乳腺癌意识相关的因素。结果：共有660名泰国女性参与了本研究。与各个乳腺癌意识领域最常相关的因素是年龄和居住在农村地区。虽然农村女性对乳腺癌体征和症状的了解较差，但她们感知到的障碍水平也较低，且乳腺癌意识行为明显更好。结论：尽管泰国农村女性对乳腺癌危险因素的了解较少，且没有证据表明她们对体征和症状有更好的了解，但我们发现她们的乳腺癌意识行为明显更好。这可能是因为这些女性感知到的乳腺癌筛查服务障碍水平较低。实际上，这表明至少在泰国女性中，旨在降低感知障碍而非增强疾病知识的干预措施可能在促使女性接受乳腺癌筛查服务和增加乳房自我检查方面更成功。
