Knowledge, Attitude and Practices towards Breast Cancer among Undergraduate Female Students in Koppal, Karnataka, India

This chapter aims to assess knowledge, attitude and practices towards breast cancer among female students in the study setting. Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women and the second most common malignancy in both developed and developing nations. The case of its incidence is rising because of increased life expectancy of people, increased urbanization and adoption of unhealthy lifestyles. An awareness of breast cancer and its presentation are essential among women for detection at an early stage and timely treatment for better prognosis.

A cross-sectional study was conducted for a duration of 3 months from July-September 2018 among female students at a Government degree college in Koppal city, Karnataka, India. Minimum sample size calculated was 256 with an absolute precision of 5% and significance level of 0.05, taking 80% prevalence of awareness on Breast cancer as per recent estimates and data was collected using a pre-tested and semi structured questionnaire after taking an informed consent. Collected data were analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel version 2013.

More than 80% of study participants had heard about breast cancer in the present study but their knowledge on various aspects of Breast cancer was limited. More than half of them were positive in their attitude believing that they are not at risk of Breast cancer and were willing to practice Breast self-examination (BSE) in future but only 5.28% of them admitted to have done BSE in the past. Most common source of information about disease was school in comparison to tv, social media, etc. in the present study.

The present study concludes that the level of knowledge among female graduate students about Breast cancer was poor and identifies several areas where Educational interventions are necessary. Even though majority had positive attitude both towards disease and practice of BSE only few practiced BSE which needs to be tackled through Behavior change communication (BCC).