Impact of a Breast Health Awareness Activity on the Knowledge Level of the Participants and its Association with Socio-Demographic Features

The developing countries have higher mortality rates for breast cancer. A reason for this is presentation at advanced stages due to low levels of public awareness. Activities are arranged by health authorities of developing countries to increase the knowledge of women but their effectiveness has not been evaluated in detail. A multiple choice questionnaire with questions about socio-demographic profile and questions about breast cancer knowledge was designed in local language Urdu, to evaluate the knowledge of the participants before and after an audio visual educational activity in Lahore, Pakistan. Scores of 0-2, 3-5 and 6-8 were ranked as poor, fair and good, respectively. Among 146 participants these scores were achieved by 1%, 55% and 45% before activity and 0%, 16% and 84% after the activity. Overall 66% of participants increased their knowledge score. Younger age, higher education, reliance on television as source of information and being a housewife were associated with better impact of the awareness activity. For the six knowledge related questions 3%, 5%, 11%, 23%, 33% and 44% more participants gave correct answers after the activity. However 6% and 7% fewer participants answered correctly for 2 questions related to the cause and the best prevention for breast cancer. The study indicated that awareness activities are effective to increase the knowledge of women and better impact is associated with higher education and younger age of women. The component analysis showed that the questions and related presentations using medical terms have a negative impact and should not therefore be used. Analysis of activity therefore leads to identification of deficiencies which can be remedied in future.