Awareness and Prevalence of Mammography Screening and its Predictors - A Cross Sectional Study in a Primary Care Clinic in Malaysia

Background: Worldwide, over half a million women died of breast cancer in 2011 alone. Mammographyscreening is associated with a reduction of 20 to 35% in breast cancer mortality. The aim of this study was todetermine the awareness and practice of mammography screening and predictors of its uptake in Malaysianwomen attending a primary care clinic. Materials and
Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out amongwomen aged 40 to 74 years attending a primary care clinic in Selangor, Malaysia. An assisted structuredquestionnaire included questions on socio-demography, source of information and level of knowledge. An adaptedversion of the revised Champion Health Belief Model Scale plus other associated factors for mammographyscreening up-take were also included as part of the questionnaire. Predictors for mammography screeninguptake were only determined in those who were aware about mammography screening. Significant predictorswere determined by logistic regression.
Results: 447 women were recruited for this study; 99.1% of them (n:411) were aware about breast cancer. Only 50.1% (n: 206) had knowledge about mammography screening.Prevalence of clinical breast-examination (CBE) was 23.3% (n: 104) and mammography screening up-take was13.2% (n: 59). The predictors for the latter were those who have had clinical breast-examination (aOR=17.58,95%CI: 7.68-39.82) and those aged between 50 to 59 years (aOR=3.94, 95%CI: 1.61-9.66) as well as those aged60 years and above (aOR=6.91, 95%CI: 2.28-20.94). Good knowledge and positive beliefs about mammographyscreening were not associated with mammography screening uptake.
Conclusions: Half of our Malaysian womenwere aware about mammography screening. However, the uptake of mammography was low. Previous CBE andolder age were significant predictors of mammography screening uptake. Increasing CBE services may increasecompliance with guidelines.