Breast self-examination: attitudes and practices among young women in Europe

Breast self examination (BSE) is recommended for the early detection of breast cancer in the European Code against Cancer. Evidence from North America suggests that there is reasonable public awareness of its importance, but compliance with regular BSE is reported by only a minority of young women. Attitudes to and practice of BSE has rarely been studied outside North America. In the present study, attitudes to BSE were evaluated by questionnaire in a sample of 16,486 students aged 17-30 from 20 European countries. Frequency of BSE practice was reported by the 9,181 women in the sample. Information on public recommendations concerning BSE was obtained from cancer organizations in each country. The data were collected as part of the European Health Behaviour Survey, an international study on health beliefs and health behaviour. The results showed that BSE was recommended in 16 countries and 'breast awareness' in two, while two countries did not recommend self-examination. 54% of women reported as never having practiced BSE. Regular practice (monthly) was reported by only 8% of the sample, with another 36% reporting occasional BSE. Significant differences emerged between centres in different countries ranging from 6% to 15% reporting regular BSE. Attitude towards BSE was a significant predictor of BSE practice within each centre and across all centres combined. Attitudes towards BSE were significantly less positive in the two centres from countries without BSE recommendations than in the others, but levels of practice were similar.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)