Breast cancer knowledge, attitudes and screening behaviors in two groups of Iranian women: physicians and non-health care personnel.

Breast cancer is one of the most frequent malignancies worldwide which is characterized by early onset and diagnosis at advanced stages in Iranian women. Increasing women's awareness and implementing breast cancer screening programs detect cancer earlier and reduce mortality. Physicians play a pivotal role in this regard. Further, there is limited literature about knowledge, attitude, and screening behaviors in Iranian women. Using a questionnaire, we assessed and compared breast cancer knowledge, attitude, and screening behaviors in 102 female physicians and 94 female non-health care personnel, who were mostly from the hospital's cleaning and housekeeping sections. Of the physicians and of non-health care personnel, respectively, 93.1 and 24.7 % felt confident about their knowledge and 37.6 and 26.1 % performed monthly breast self-examination. Of physicians aged 40 and over, 31.25 and 18.75 % had clinical breast examination and mammogram, respectively, within 12 months prior to date of data collection. In non-health care personnel aged 40 and over, the results were 27.59 % for clinical breast examination and 17.24 % for mammogram at the same period of time. Despite the higher knowledge and socioeconomic class of physicians, there were no significant difference in screening behaviors between physicians and non-health care personnel (P > 0.05).