METHODS: A retrospective descriptive study was conducted on secondary data of all newly diagnosed breast cancer women from 1st August 2011 to 28th February 2014. Secondary data includes age, ethnicity, marital status, family history, education level, occupation, presenting symptom, duration of symptom, tumour size, tumour pathology, tumour grading, oestrogen, progesterone and HER-2 receptor status were collected and analysed using SPSS version 20.0.0.
RESULT: In total, data from 52 women was analysed and two women were excluded for incompleteness as these women defaulted. Late stage at presentation was 59.6% of all new cases (17.3% stage III and 42.3% stage IV). The commonest age group of all women diagnosed with breast cancer was in the 5th decade. Majority of them were Malay, married and housewives with no family history of breast cancer. The statistically significant factors associated with late stage at presentation include Malay ethnicity (p=0.019), presenting symptoms other than breast lump (p=0.047), and duration of breast lump more than 3 months (p=0.009).
DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: The study demonstrated presentation at late stage of breast cancer is a major health concern among Malaysian women in district hospital. This may be attributed to different sociocultural beliefs, strong belief in complementary and alternative medicine, lack of awareness, and difficult accessibility to healthcare services.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 377 community dwelling older adults 60 years and over living in Kashan, Iran. A multistage proportional random sampling technique was applied to obtain the sample. The grandparent -grandchildren relationship was measured by a researcher-developed 16-item scale. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 23 and AMOS 23.
Results: The mean age of the respondents was 70.42(SD = 8.20) years. About 62% of the respondents were female and 60.7% were married. The average score of grandparents-grandchild relationship was 67.60(SD = 12.47). The multiple linear regression analysis revealed a significant model (F (11, 365) = 19.05, P < 0.001), where information communication technology of grandparents, geographical distance between grandparents and grandchildren, and the quality of relationship between grandparents and parents of grandchildren were the most important predictors of the grandparents-grandchildren relationship.
Conclusion: The findings from the current study showed that status of grandparents-grandchildren relationship is moderate to high and influenced by some factors. It is, therefore, suggested that policymakers pay more attention to strengthening grandparent-grandchild relationship by providing educational programs for families and encouraging the elderly to learn and use information communication technology.
METHODS: A cross sectional study was performed in three randomly selected centres that organised pre-marital courses. All Malay Muslim women participants aged 18 to 40 years old were recruited while non-Malaysian, illiterate, and had hysterectomy were excluded. Validated self-administered questionnaires used were European Health Literacy Questionnaire (HLS-EU-Q16 Malay) and Knowledge and attitude towards Cervical Cancer and Pap Smear Questionnaire. The mean percentage score (mean± SD) was calculated, with higher scores showed better outcomes. Multiple linear regression was used to measure the relationship of independent variables with attitude towards Pap smear.
RESULTS: A total of 417 participants were recruited with a mean age of 24.9 ± 3.56 years old. Prevalence of awareness of cervical cancer was 91.6% (n=382, 95% CI: 89.0%, 94.2%) and mean percentage score was 74.7%±7.6. Prevalence of awareness of Pap smear was 59.0% (n=246, 95% CI: 54.2%, 63.8%) and mean percentage score was 80.2% ± 6.5. The health literacy mean score was 13.3±3.6, with minimum score 0 and maximum score 16. The mean percentage score of attitudes towards Pap smear was 64.8%±9.3. Multiple linear regression analysis demonstrated significant relationship between health literacy (p=0.047) and knowledge of Pap smear (p<0.001) with attitude towards Pap smear.
CONCLUSION: A higher health literacy with high knowledge of Pap smear improves the attitude towards Pap smear. Pre-marital course is an opportunistic platform to disseminate information to improve health literacy and knowledge of cervical cancer and Pap smear screening.