Impact of A Health Education Intervention Program about Breast Cancer among Women in a Semi-urban Area in Alexandria, Egypt.

UNLABELLED: Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second principal cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide as well as in Egypt. The present work aimed to assess the impact of a health education intervention program about breast cancer (BC) among women in a semi-urban area in Alexandria. The study was carried out through pre-post test design in three phases; pre intervention phase, intervention phase, and post intervention phase. A total number of 139 females accepted to be included in the study, their mean age was 39.94 +/-13.5 years, about 23% had secondary and university education. Intervention health education program was administrated to 96 women, those were subjected to post test, and the total number of drop-outs group was 43 women. The results showed that there was a highly significant improvement in all knowledge items of the intervention group from pre to post-test. After the intervention program, eleven women (11.6%) had good knowledge. About, 75.0% practiced breast self examination (BSE) in post-test compared to 70.0% who did not practiced it in pre-test. Age was the only factor affecting BC knowledge significantly. Women's education and knowledge score were significantly associated with the practice of BSE. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS: data from this study re-enforce the continuing need for more BC education programs that are intended to attract the attention of women with low literacy skills.