Breast Cancer Prevention Information Seeking Behavior and Interest on Cell Phone and Text Use: a Cross-sectional Study in Malaysia

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer and the second principal cause of cancer deathsamong women worldwide, including Malaysia. This study focused on media choice and attempted to determinethe communication channels mostly used and preferred by women in seeking information and knowledge aboutbreast cancer. Materials and
Methods: A cross sectional study was carried out to examine the breast cancerprevention information seeking behavior among 450 students at one private university in Malaysia.
Results: Themean age of respondents was 25±4.3 years. Common interpersonal information sources were doctors, friends,and nurses and common channel information sources were television, brochure, and internet. Overall, 89.9%used cell phones, 46.1% had an interest in receiving cell phone breast cancer prevention messages, 73.9% usedtext messaging, and 36.7% had an interest in receiving text breast cancer prevention messages. Bivariate analysisrevealed significant differences among age, eduation, nationality and use of cell phones.
Conclusions: Assessmentof health information seeking behavior is important for community health educators to target populations forprogram development.