Breast and Cervical Cancer Related Practices of Female Health Care Workers at a Tertiary Hospital in Gaziantep, Turkey

INTRODUCTION: Breast and cervical cancer are common in women and they are largely preventable. This study was performed to determine the knowledge and practices of female health care workers (FHW) about breast and cervical cancers in a university hospital.
METHODS: This cross sectional study was conducted Gaziantep University Hospital. The data was collected with a questionnaire consisting of 21 questions. Chi-square and logistic regression analyses were used for statistical analyses.
RESULTS: A total 412 women were included in the study. The mean age of the participants was 31.2 ± 7.7 years and 21.4% were doctors, 32.5% were nurses and 46.1% were working in other fields.It was found that 25.5% of the participants did not do breast self-examination (BSE), while 42.2% of them did it irregularly and 32.3% of them did it monthly. “Forgetting, neglect, and not having enough time” (47.1%) were cited as the most frequent reasons for not doing the BSE. 19.7% of the women had clinical breast examinations, 22.1% had breast ultrasound and 8.3% had mammography at least once. The rate of patients who had a Pap smear test was 22.8%. “Finding it unnecessary” (47.6%) was cited as the most significant reason for not having a mammography or a Pap smear test. The percentage of those who had heard about the HPV vaccine was 64.1%, while the rate of those who had had the HPV vaccine was 5.1%.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: It was concluded that the knowledge and practices on breast and cervical cancer screening methods among FHW need to be improved.