Study on knowledge, experiences and barriers to mammography among working women from Delhi

Abstract

Introduction: Mammography is not a popular screening tool for deducting breast cancer in India although regular screening is associated with reduced mortality from breast cancer.

Objective: The objective of this study is to find out knowledge, experiences and barriers to mammography among working women of Delhi.

Materials and methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted from October 2012 to March 2013 among working women from Delhi, India. The study was conducted as a part of ongoing training workshops organized for women on early detection of breast cancer. Total of eight such programs were organized and were attended by a total of 439 women. Each participant got a self-administered questionnaire to fill. Data was entered in Microsoft Excel and analysis was done using Statistical product and service solutions (SPSS) version 21 (IBM).

Results: A total of 439 participants were included in the study. 230 (52.4%) of the women were more than 40 years of age. Only four participants (1%) had not heard about the term mammography before. Less than half (45.1%) of the participants knew correctly the purpose of a mammogram. Only 11.8% of the women knew correctly about the age of getting the first baseline mammogram. Knowledge of frequency of getting the mammogram was also low only 95 (21.6%) correctly knew about it. Only 59 (11.9%) correctly responded that one needs to go to an imaging facility located either in a hospital or elsewhere to get mammogram done. Main experience shared by the women regarding mammography was that 42 (95.45%) did not know anything about the procedure when they went for this investigation. Out of a total of 230 women over 40 years of age only 38 (16.5%) had ever got a mammogram carried out. There is a statistically significant association between education status and practice of mammography (P < 0.05). There were 18 women with family history of breast cancer out, of which 10 (55.5%) had got mammography carried out. 192 out of 230 (83.5%) women over 40 years of age had never got a mammogram done. Main reason 74 (38.5%) cited for this was that they did not know/were not aware they were supposed to go for mammography.

Conclusion: As knowledge and utilization of mammography is low among women, there is a need to have a multipronged strategy to inform women about mammography and bring about a behavioral change along with having a formal national level screening guidelines for breast cancer early detection.