TURKISH JOURNAL OF ONCOLOGY 2004 , Vol 19 , Num 1
THE PREVALANCE AND THE FACTORS EFFECTING THE BREAST SELF EXAMINATION IN MIDDLE BLACK SEA REGION
Kum S.1, Göksu Alp U.1, Kelkitli E.1, Yücel İ.2
1Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi İç Hastalıkları Ana Bilim Dalı, Samsun
2Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi Tıbbi Onkoloji Bilim Dalı, Samsun
This study was planned to determine the prevalance of breast self examination(BSE), to find out the accuracy and the factors effecting the BSE and to assess the sensitivity of physicians to this subject.

This study is a questionary made among 675 women whose median age was 37,8 ± 14,8 . 135 of these women were medical staff and 540 were from general population.

63,8 % of the women enrolled in our questionary were performing BSE whereas 36,2 % of them did not. The prevalance of the BSE performed correctly was 6 % in medical staff and 0,42 % in general population. There was a statistically significant difference between the level of education socioeconomic, status and being a medical staff and the prevalance of BSE (p<0.001) whereas there was no statistically significant difference between the age and the prevalance of BSE (p > 0,05).

As a result medical staff especially the medical doctors should have greater responsibility in order to teach and generalize the BSE in the general population to diagnose early breast cancer Keywords : Breast cancer, breast self examination