Assessing the breast and cervical cancer screening behavior among nurses, physicians and patients in a university setting.

A55

The transtheoretical model was usedto characterize nurses, physicians and patients with non-malignant disease according to their stage of readinessto engage in one of three recommended screening tests for breast and cervix cancer, namely clinical breast examination (CBE), mammography and pap test. Analyses based aged 22-70 years on 77 survey respondents showed that for mammography the level of awareness and behavioral attitude were similar among nurses, physicians and patients (Kruskal-Wallis test, p=0.49). Proportion correctly maintaining screening were 67%, 64% and 65%, respectively and only 3% of the patients were unaware of the method. For cervical cancer screening, nurses and physicians behaved similarly (29% and 27% percent never had-not planning to have the test and 63% and 50% contemplating to resume or start screening, respectively) while the unawareness levels were quite high for the patient group (58% percent). The screening attitude towards breast and cervix screening methods was similar among nurses, as well as the physicians (Friedman test, both p-values greater than 0.4). On the other hand, patients were much more aware of mammography when compared to pap test and CBE (Friedman test, p<0.003). The barriers for not planning to have the tests include difficulty of tests, being asymptomatic, shyness/reluctance, being unaware of recomended schedule and misinformation. Among health workers, more or less 1 in every 3 women is off-schedule for both methods which is considerably high. Mammography screening is percieved better, probably because it is relatively less cumbersome and culturally accepted to perform. While exploring new effective ways to early diagnose cancer, the health systems should also explore ways to overcome obstacles and implement better the existing widely-accepted methods.