ABSTRACT

Objective:

It has been planned for the purpose of determining the status of women healthcare professionals’ knowledge and practice of the early diagnosis methods for breast cancer, who are working in the province of Istanbul Ministry of Health Başakşehir Public Hospital.

Material and Methods:

The research has been planned in a descriptive nature with the population of the research constituted by the 107 women healthcare professionals, who work at the Ministry of Health Başakşehir Public Hospital. Seventy-six women healthcare professionals, who are willing to take part and who are on duty at the hospital at the stated dates, constituted the universe of research. The questionnaire forms were used to collect the data.

Results:

It has been determined that 52.6% of the women healthcare professionals who participated in the research is in the 26-35 year-old age group, 75% of them are university graduates or postgraduates and 61.8% of them are nurses. It has also been determined that 19.7% of the participants make their regular Breast Self-Examination (BSE) monthly, 2.6% of them have Clinical Breast Examination (CBE) yearly and 1.3% of them have a mammography (MG) scan regularly yearly. When the conditions of making BSE, having CBE and having MG scan of the women healthcare professionals, who have and do not have a family history of breast cancer, were examined, no statistically significant correlation was found (p=0.166, p=1.0, p=1.0).

Conclusion:

It has been determined that very few of the participants have made their BSE, have had CBE and MG scan.