Department of Statistics, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh.
Cancer Rep (Hoboken). 2022 Nov;5(11):e1608. doi: 10.1002/cnr2.1608. Epub 2022 Feb 4.
Breast cancer has become a concerning health problem worldwide due to its increasing incidence rate. Women from developing countries are dying off due to the lack of knowledge on breast cancer and its different early detection programs.
This study explores the level of knowledge about breast cancer risk factors, early warning signs, screening, and therapeutic approaches and their influential determinants among university and medical college students.
A cross-sectional study was conducted, including 567 female university-level students (343 female students from 1 university and 224 female students from 1 medical college). This study used a semi-structured questionnaire about four aspects (risk factors, early warning signs, screening, and therapeutic approaches) of breast cancer, latent class analysis (LCA), and latent class regression (LCR) for investigation.
The percent of knowing correct answers of risk factors, early warning signs, screening approaches, and therapeutic methods were 86.3%, 69.8%, 70.2%, and 51.2%, respectively for medical students who had a high level of awareness and those for university students were 73.0%, 66.8%, 35.9%, and 24.7%. On the other hand, only 37.95% of medical students had been practicing Breast self-examination (BSE), while it was 18.37% for university students. The most effective predictors of the high level of awareness were age, advertisements (ad) promoting awareness about breast cancer, programs/campaign related to breast cancer, and personal breast problem history.
Taken together, the awareness level about four aspects of breast cancer is low among university students and is moderately high among medical students. Therefore, relevant health education programs in every educational institute are urgently needed to improve the awareness levels among female students to improve women's health at home and abroad.
由于乳腺癌发病率的不断上升，乳腺癌已成为全球关注的健康问题。发展中国家的妇女因缺乏对乳腺癌及其不同早期检测方案的了解而死亡。
本研究旨在探讨大学和医学院女生对乳腺癌危险因素、早期预警信号、筛查和治疗方法的了解程度及其影响因素。
采用横断面研究，纳入 567 名女性大学生（1 所大学的 343 名女生和 1 所医学院的 224 名女生）。本研究使用了一个关于乳腺癌四个方面（危险因素、早期预警信号、筛查和治疗方法）的半结构式问卷，采用潜在类别分析（LCA）和潜在类别回归（LCR）进行调查。
对于具有较高意识水平的医学生，危险因素、早期预警信号、筛查方法和治疗方法的正确答案知晓率分别为 86.3%、69.8%、70.2%和 51.2%，而对于大学生则分别为 73.0%、66.8%、35.9%和 24.7%。另一方面，只有 37.95%的医学生进行过乳房自我检查（BSE），而大学生的这一比例为 18.37%。高水平意识的最有效预测因素是年龄、宣传乳腺癌意识的广告、与乳腺癌相关的项目/活动以及个人乳房问题史。
综上所述，大学生对乳腺癌四个方面的认识水平较低，医学生的认识水平中等偏高。因此，迫切需要在每所教育机构开展相关的健康教育计划，以提高女学生的意识水平，改善国内外女性的健康状况。
