Investigating Effective Factors on Breast Self-examination Behavior in Iranian Employed of Medical Careers

Introduction & aim:Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and the first cause of death is cancer. Screening tests are the basis for early diagnosis.In Iranian women, due to lack of doing screening and delayed visit, mortality rates are high.Thus this study aimed to determine the effective factors on breast self-examination in Iranian employed of medical careers. Methods:This cross-sectional study was conducted on 501 women who worked in medical professions in medical sciences of Hamadan University in west of Iran in 2017.The subjects were selected by stratified random sampling method.Data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire which contained demographic information and questions based on protection motivation theory and Social support which was completed by women in self-report form. Data analysis was conducted at descriptive stage with SPSS version 23 and model fitting with Smart software PLS version 2. Results: The mean age of the studied population was 37.1 ± 8.35 years old and most of the women (80.4%) were married. Most women had bachelor s degree (67.5%).The findings of this study showed that the Coping appraisal construct was a predictor of protection motivation (β=0.380,P <0.05) and protection motivation (β=0.604, P <0.05) was predictor of behavior. Also, social support theory (β=0.202,P <0.05) has a positive and significant effect on doing breast self-examination behavior. Conclusion:Amount of doing self-examination in Iranian employed women was low and considering to the influence of social support as provocative factor for doing Screening, paying attention to the effective people on women in designing educational interventions is necessary.

کلیدواژه ها:

Breast self-examination ، Women ، Protection Motivation Theory ، Social support