Introduction:

This study’s aim was to determine the knowledge of the women about breast cancer and their practice about breast self examination who were 20 years old and above and live in Karaköy which is a country of Bolu.

Materials and Methods:

This was a Cross-sectional and descriptive study. The research was carried on 150 woman.

Results:

Socio-demographic features of the study group were; mean age of the women who were 20 years old and above was 45+/-18 ( min:20, max:84), 72.7 % were maried, 65.3 % were graduated from primary school, 88.7 were housewives (n:150). In the applied questionare: 30.0 % of the study group didn’t know how the breast cancer is diagnosed, 31.9 % of the women didn’t believe the necessity of mammography, 5.0 % didn’t know the necessity of mammography, 71.3 % of the women didn’t know the breast self examination and 72.0 % didn’t practice breast examination by herselves before. We found that only 47.6 % of the women do breast examination by herselves from 56.0 % who require to do breast self examination ( X2:36.690; P: 0.000).

Discussion:

Although most of the women learnt breast self examination firstly from health personnel than from press or mass media, practice of the examination was so low. That’s why: • The women who live in the rural area must be educated about breast cancer, breast self examination and the risk factors. The necessity of the breast examination by herselves when they are healthy must be emphasised.

Keywords: woman, breast cancer, breast self examination, rural area, nursing