INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer is the leading cancer in women today and the major challenge is late presentation then later contributes to poor outcome and high fatality rate. Mammography is effective in early detection of breast cancer and consequently significantly improves the breast cancer survival.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was used to study the knowledge and awareness towards mammogram amongst women aged 15 years old and above. A systemic random sampling was applied and information gathered through guided interview by using a structured questionnaire.
RESULTS: Eighty-six respondents were recruited. The mean age of respondents was 40.5 years (SD: 15.51) and more than 80% had secondary and tertiary level of education. The percentage of respondents ever performed mammogram was 10.5% (95% CI: 4.0%-17.0%). The rate of correct answers was between 8.1% and 48.8%. Most of the respondents do not sure the answer (45.3%-61.6%) rather than wrongly answer (4.7%-43.0%). Only about 8% truly answer that mammogram should be done once in a life. There are 10.5% of women claimed that mammogram had no serious side effect and not a painful procedure. Nearly half of respondents (48.8%) correctly mentioned that Mammogram can detect breast cancer in early stage.
CONCLUSION: Only a small percentage of women ever performed mammogram and there are seriously unaware and poor knowledge pertaining to mammography screening for breast cancer among women in sub urban area. A massive health education campaign through multiple methods and agencies are needed to enhance the knowledge and awareness on mammogram.
The objective of this study was to identify demographic characteristics and correlates of the uptake of HIV testing, willingness to be tested and perceived HIV-related stigma of Malaysian lay public. A cross-sectional computer-assisted telephone interview survey of a representative sample of multiracial Malaysians aged 18 years and above was conducted between December and July 2011. The survey collected information on demographics, knowledge about HIV transmission and religious beliefs on attitudes to HIV/AIDS. A total of 2271 households were successfully interviewed. The response rate was 48.65%. The HIV transmission knowledge score ranged from 0 to 15 (mean =10.56; SD±2.42). Three of the most common misconceptions about HIV transmission were mosquito bite (42.8%), eating in a restaurant where the cook is HIV positive (20.4%) and using a public toilet (20.1%). Only 20.6% reported ever having been tested for HIV, 49.1% reported a willingness to be tested for HIV and 30.3% had no intention of getting an HIV test. Low-risk perception (63.7%) constitutes a major barrier to HIV testing. Being Malay and Chinese (relative to Indian) were the strongest predictors of low-risk perception. Other significant predictors of low-risk perception were being male, being married and living in an urban locality. Perceived self-stigma if tested positive for HIV was prevalent (78.8%). Multivariate findings showed that being female, Malay, low income, living in rural localities and public stigma were significant correlates of self-stigma. These findings warrant interventions to reduce the disproportionate HIV transmission misconception, barriers to HIV testing and stigma and discriminative attitudes to involve considerations of sociocultural economic and demographic characteristics.
The aims of the study were to determine the prevalence of the common health problems namely acne, overweight, smoking and depressive symptoms among adolescents attending a primary healthcare clinic, whether they seek treatment for these problems and the reasons for not consulting health professionals. It was a clinic-based, crosssectional study. All adolescents aged 13 to 20 years who attended the clinic during the study period were included in the study. The respondents were given self-administered questionnaires and their weights were measured to assess if they had the above disorders. A total of 215 adolescents were included in the study. The proportion of adolescents who had acne were 70.7%, overweight 8.9%, smoking 41.9% and depressive symptoms 9.8%. Only 25% of those who had acne, 47% of those who were overweight, 9.5% who had depressive symptoms and none of those who smoked had ever sought treatment for these problems. The common reasons given for not consulting the health professionals were 'did not consider it as a problem', 'shy' and 'thought there was no treatment available'. The majority of the adolescents who attended the clinic did not consult health professionals the above common health problems. It is important to educate them on these disorders and encourage health-seeking behaviour in adolescents.