Practice and knowledge about breast self -examination among female students in College of Medicine, University of Baghdad: A Descriptive cross-sectional study

Background: Early detection of breast cancer enhances the treatment and management before occurrence of metastasis. One of the ways of early detection is breast self -examination which is simple and noninvasive. Aim of the study: This study aims to assess the level o f knowledge and practice o f Breast Self-Examination among the female students in college of medicine /university of Baghdad. Material and methods: th is is a descriptive, cross sectional study, the data was collected by using a simple random sampling method, we collect data from 200 female medical students from University of Baghdad – College of Medicine, by sharing the link of the questionnaire among students social media group. Results: Age range of the study participants was from 17-25 years with a mean of 20.5 years. Most of them were aware of breast carcinoma, all females who heard about breast cancer heard about at least one sign of it. In this regard, we found that among the (200 students), 98.5% reported knowledge about the subject and 54.5% reported practicing breast self-examination. Doctors (44.5%) were the main source of informat ion on breast self-examination. Conclusions : Though most students are aware of the existence of breast cancer, there is insufficient practice o f breast self-examination. The study highlights the need for educational programs to increase awareness regarding regular breast cancer screening behavior.