Healthcare educators’ awareness, attitudes and practices of breast health : a mixed methods study.

Abstract

Background Breast cancer is a great health concern globally. According to the cancer registry of South Africa, it is the leading cause of death amongst females. The World Health Organisation (WHO) focuses on early detection of breast cancer to decrease the mortality rate and to improve the prognosis.

Breast self-examination (BSE) is recommended by the WHO as one of the screening methods for early detection of breast cancer. However, it has been found that BSE is still neglected by women all over the world including those who are assumed to have adequate knowledge of BSE and breast cancer screening tests. In some cultures, women are not encouraged to do BSE while some individuals cannot access mammograms or breast ultrasound on a regular basis. In higher education institutions in South Africa the staff complement is culturally diverse due to implementation of transformation within the Higher education sector. It is therefore important to investigate the healthcare educators’ awareness, attitudes, and practises of breast health. Healthcare educators are role models to their students and therefore should set an example in their practising of breast health.

Aim This research aims to describe and explain the awareness, attitude and practises of healthcare educators related to breast health at a selected University in South Africa.

Methods An explanatory sequential mixed methods research design was used to describe and explain the awareness, attitudes, and practises of breast health among health care educators. For the quantitative aspect of the study participants completed an online questionnaire about breast health and after analysing the results, the qualitative aspect of the study followed with one on one semi-structured interviews that were conducted by the researcher. Results Quantitative aspect: The results obtained from the quantitative aspect of the study indicated that many participants practice BSE and gained their knowledge of BSE from medical practitioners. The most noteworthy reason for delaying issues regarding breast health was lack of time. Participants who were married or in a relationship had higher awareness scores. Family history of breast and of any other type of cancer had a significant association with participants’ attitude toward breast health. Some of the results from the quantitative aspect of the study were further elaborated on in the qualitative aspect of the study.

Qualitative aspect: From the qualitative section of this study, it became evident that although participants indicated that breast health is important to them, they do not prioritise performing any of the screening tests available to them. The participants indicated that they do not have a proper or dedicated platform to speak to students about breast health, as it is usually not relevant to the subject that they are teaching.

Conclusion Despite the positive attitude and awareness of breast health among healthcare educators, the practises of breast health are somewhat alarming. The main contributors to this being participants’ unwillingness to prioritise breast health, healthcare educators’ reluctance to discuss the importance of breast health with students and participants’ personal beliefs of breast health, which leads them to be shy, fearful and embarrassed to practice breast health.

Keywords: Breast cancer, breast health practises, awareness, healthcare educators, attitudes