| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: Breast self-examination is a systemic check-up where, a woman check herself on her breast at home to look for any changes or problems affecting the breast tissue, it is a general approach to increasing breast health awareness that allow for early detection of any breast anomalies.[8] Breast self –examination is one of the methods recommended for early detection of breast cancer /abnormality. The incidence of breast cancer in Uganda is unknown, although reports show that breast cancer is the third most common cancer among women with a low five –year survival rate estimated at 56%.This is attributed to breast cancer being an invasive and aggressive disease and is associated with a poorer prognosis in older women.[5] Early detection rates through breast self-examination (BSE) plays an important role in decreasing the morbidity and mortality rates in addition to several other factors.[9] Numerous studies have induced the need for conducting more research on breast cancer knowledge, screening practices and factors such as lifestyle changes to address the increasing morbidity and mortality rates. Such studies should be extended to female university students to strengthen BSE behaviors and practice to reduce breast cancer-related deaths in women under the age of 35.[11]
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess female medical students’ knowledge of breast cancer and to identify their BSE practices with the aim of designing an education intervention basically to address knowledge and practice gaps.
The research aimed at increasing knowledge of female medical students, medical sector and the country about breast self-examination.To the female students, will be informed about the need to carry out breast self-examination, advantages of breast self-examination, how they can help in the fight against breast cancer through breast self-examination.
Methods: The descriptive qualitative study design was conducted from January to May 2024 among female medical students of the college of health science Makerere university. A purposive random sampling technique was utilized to select a sample size of 20 students from third year medical students who participated in the study. Out of the 20 participants 4 (20%) were from radiography ,3(15%) from nursing,2(10%) from optometry ,3(15%) from dentistry and 8(40%) from medicine and surgery. All the participants were within the age range of 18-25 years. The audio-recorded data and written notes were analyzed using thematic methods.
Results :The findings of the study were discussed under three themes of knowledge about BSE ,two themes of practice of BSE and three themes of attitude towards BSE .The three themes of knowledge were better prognosis of breast cancer, medical camp teaching and experience of BSE .The two themes of practice were uncertainty about the recommended time of practicing BSE ,poor BSE steps .The three themes of attitude were misconception about BSE ,low knowledge about BSE and fear of detecting BC.These findings suggested that promoting knowledge about BC and accurate information about BSE among female medical students will contribute to combating BC rise in Uganda | en_US |
