Abstract:

Background and objective: Cancer of the breast is a malignant disease that forms in tissues of the breast.Global statistics show that the annual morbidity and mortality of BC are increasing, in which over 1.15 million women worldwide (representing 10 percent of all diagnosed cancers and 23 percent of cancers diagnosed in women) are diagnosed with breast cancer each year and more than 502,000 of them die from this disease. The disease accounts for more than 1.6% of all female mortality worldwide.Low breast cancer awareness, social and cultural factors were suggested to play crucial role in late presentation of breast cancer among ,The study is going to assess the awareness status of breast cancer and associated risk factors among adult female attending OPD at BMC.

Methodology: This was a cross section health facilities based study, done at Bugando Medical Centre from September to December 2020 involving a minimum of 161 participants. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and discussion with the participants and analyzed through SPSS 20 software as per research objectives.


Results: The study included 175 adult female with mean age of ……….out of which 60(37.3%) resides in rural area and 101(62.7%) reports urban residence. it was identified in a study that 25(15.5%) participants have never heard about breast cancer and 136(85.5%) participants have at least once heard about breast cancer from different sources. Furthermore 29(17.9%) responded that breast cancer is an infectious disease while50 (30.9%) responded that it is a disease running in a family and 82(50.9%) reported it’s a disease of uncertain origin. About the signs and symptoms of breast cancer, 31(19.1%) participants had DON’T KNOW response, while 48(29.6%) said NO and 82(50.6%) responded YES on the question about nipple bleeding and abnormal secretion be a sign and symptom of breast cancer. While 24(14.9%)participants responded I DON’T KNOW,45(27.9%) responded NO and 92(57.1%) respondents said YES on the question that the breast swelling can mean there breast cancer. Furthermore on the question about breast ulceration 43(26.5%)responded I DONT KNOW while 45(27.8%) respondents said NO and 73(50.4%) participants said YES and the overall awareness on sign and symptoms of breast cancer was determined to be 57.8% ranked as good s 93 participants responded correctly to at least three out of five question asked under this category and that 42.2% had poor awareness status as 68 participants responded incorrectly to at least three question asked under this category.
The awareness of the risk factors associated with development of breast cancer was also assessed and the awareness status was considered good when answering correctly the three of five questions asked under this category, the study revealed of the 161 participants,41( 25.5%)participants had good awareness compared to 120(74.5%) has poor awareness of the risk factors.