Sahar Gamal Zaki¹, Hanan Elzeblawy Hassan^2,, Fatma Saber Nady³

Background: Breast cancer affects women at any age, with increasing rates in later life. Age, height, family history, and racial disparities contribute to the disease's risk. Advanced screening methods, such as smart bras and positron emission mammography, help detect the disease. Aim: The current study was conducted to assess female workers’ knowledge about breast cancer at Beni-Suef University and evaluate the impact effect socio-demographic characteristics on their knowledge. Subjects and Methods: Design: A descriptive design was utilized. Sample and Settings: 323 working women at Beni-Suef University. Tools: Tool I: A Structured Interviewing Questionnaire Sheet; It was concerned with the personal and socio-demographic details of the studied females (6 questions). Tool II: women's knowledge about breast cancer, breast self-examination, and breast cancer preventive measures sheet; to assess women's knowledge about breast cancer, self-examination, and preventive measures, focusing on 55 questions across three domains: general information, early detection screening, and preventive measures. Results: illustrated that 50.8% of the female in the study were between the ages of 30 and under 40, 75.9% of the female were married, and 45.8% of them held a university degree, 72.1%, 76.8%, and 72.4%, respectively, had poor level of general knowledge compared to only 10.2%, 7.4%, and 7.1% that had good knowledge. Conclusion There a relation between the socio-demographic characteristics of the studied female workers and their total knowledge about breast cancer, breast self-examination, and breast cancer preventive measures. There was a statistically significant relation between the studied female workers total knowledge score with their educational level, place of residence, and marital status. Recommendations: Provide breast self-examination techniques to Beni-Suef University employee ladies in order to develop their practices and facilitate the early diagnosis of any abnormalities.

Knowledge, Breast Cancer, Socio-demographic characteristics