Abstract
Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women all over the world. It is estimated to account for around 25% of all malignancies in women, and its incidence shows a continuously increasing trend in many countries all over the world.
The aim of the study was to assess the knowledge of Kosovar women about methods for early detection of breast cancer and to determine the level of breast cancer screening.
Methods: This cross-sectional study included a sample of 303 women, aged 20-60 years, who were randomly selected in centres of family medicine and invited to complete a semi-structured questionnaire. The one-way ANOVA and the chi-square test were used for analysis.
Results: The results showed that 71.4% of women in urban areas and 52.7% of rural women were familiar with the methods used for breast cancer detection (p value <0.01). They reported knowledge of the following screening methods: clinical breast examination (24.8%), breast self-examination (12.6%), mammography and breast ultrasound (5.0%), and other methods (23.4%); 34.2% of the women surveyed admitted that they knew no breast cancer screening method. The results of the study indicated that a very low percentage of women in the sample made use of the tools for early breast cancer detection.
Conclusion: There were differences in the level of knowledge about the methods of breast cancer screening: women in urban areas, those with higher level of education and employed women had higher levels of knowledge about breast cancer screening compared to rural women, less educated women and unemployed women. In general, however, the levels of breast cancer screening are very low in both, urban and rural settings.