Ali Montazeri, Mehregan Haji-Mahmoodi, Soghra Jarvandi
{"title":"Breast self-examination: do religious beliefs matter? A descriptive study.","authors":"Ali Montazeri, Mehregan Haji-Mahmoodi, Soghra Jarvandi","doi":"10.1093/pubmed/fdg031","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>A descriptive study was conducted in Tehran, Iran, to investigate the beliefs of Muslim women and their practices regarding screening modalities of breast cancer.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A questionnaire was specially designed and validated to collect data and was completed by 410 Muslim women.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>A vast majority of women (90 per cent) said that breast self-examination is not against their religious beliefs. With regard to clinical breast examination, although 58 per cent preferred to be examined by a female physician, 47 per cent said that clinical breast examination by a male physician is not against their Islamic beliefs. However, only 6 per cent of respondents performed breast self-examination on a regular basis (monthly).</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The study findings suggest that most Muslim women do not perceive breast self-examination as being against their Islamic beliefs and that they believe clinical breast examination by a male physician does not interfere with their religious beliefs.</p>","PeriodicalId":77224,"journal":{"name":"Journal of public health medicine","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2003-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/pubmed/fdg031","citationCount":"49","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of public health medicine","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdg031","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 49
Abstract
Background: A descriptive study was conducted in Tehran, Iran, to investigate the beliefs of Muslim women and their practices regarding screening modalities of breast cancer.
Methods: A questionnaire was specially designed and validated to collect data and was completed by 410 Muslim women.
Results: A vast majority of women (90 per cent) said that breast self-examination is not against their religious beliefs. With regard to clinical breast examination, although 58 per cent preferred to be examined by a female physician, 47 per cent said that clinical breast examination by a male physician is not against their Islamic beliefs. However, only 6 per cent of respondents performed breast self-examination on a regular basis (monthly).
Conclusions: The study findings suggest that most Muslim women do not perceive breast self-examination as being against their Islamic beliefs and that they believe clinical breast examination by a male physician does not interfere with their religious beliefs.