Breast Cancer Screening: Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Female Youths in Lugbe Community of Abuja Nigeria

More than one million women are diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide each year and over half of whom will die from the disease. The most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death for women has been Breast cancer. Although, the prognosis of breast cancer has been improved via extensive breast cancer screening programmes and the development of new treatments. The goals of studies that focus on the early diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer have not yet been achieved and therefore, it is recognized that even among young people, knowledge about breast cancer is inadequate and the inadequacy of knowledge and practice make early diagnosis and effective treatment difficult. This study aimed at assessing Knowledge, Attitude and practice of young female in Lugbe community of Abuja, Nigeria. Three hundred and seventeen female youth participated in this cross-sectional descriptive study. Participants were recruited using Simple random sampling technique. A 52-item questionnaire on the self-reported knowledge, attitudes and practices towards breast cancer screening was formulated and used for data collection. A large proportion of the participants are between the age 21-25 (49.8%). About three quarter 241 (76%) of the respondents were single. This study revealed that 67.8% (215) of the respondents have good knowledge towards breast cancer screening while 32.2% (102) have poor knowledge about breast cancer screening, 80.1% (254) of the respondents have good attitudes towards breast cancer screening while 19.9% (63) have poor attitudes towards breast cancer screening and only 12.6% (254) of the respondents have good practices towards breast cancer screening while majority 87.4% (277) have poor practices towards breast cancer screening. There is a statistically significant association between marital status, highest educational level, occupation of female youths and knowledge about breast cancer screening while highest educational level, religion, occupation have statistical association with the attitudes of female youths towards breast cancer screening and Age-group, highest educational level have statistical association with practices towards breast cancer screening. This research has shown that majority of female youth have good knowledge and attitude about breast cancer screening but has poor practice towards breast cancer screening. Therefore, schools, community, religion centres and government should design programs that will create better awareness on the importance of breast cancer screening, how it is done, when and where breast cancer screening can be accessed. It is also indispensably important that screening facilities should be provided in primary health care centres to improve availability and accessibility to this essential life-saving service among young female population.