Effectiveness of breast self-examination teaching to women of low socioeconomic class.

To assess the effect of a breast self-examination (BSE) teaching program on retention of BSE knowledge and accuracy of BSE performance among women of low socioeconomic class, a pretest-posttest control group design with random assignment to groups was given to women at a Southeastern urban clinic. One hundred eighty women were pretested, after which the experimental group (N = 89) received one-to-one BSE instruction. Seventy of the subjects were given a posttest approximately two months later. All subjects were then asked to demonstrate BSE on themselves. The experimental group subjects showed a significantly greater increase in BSE knowledge from pretest to posttest and performed BSE with greater accuracy than the control group.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes