The objective of the study was to assess female secondary school teachers’ knowledge and attitude of breast self examination (BSE) and to describe the extent of practice of breast self examination among them. This study employed a descriptive design and data was collected with the aid of validated semi structured questionnaire from 100 female teachers in all the five secondary schools in Oko, Oyo State, and analysis was done using Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The result showed that 82% of the respondents were aware of breast self examination practices and their source of this information was from mass media (55%) and friends (25%). Fifty-four respondents had poor knowledge of BSE and 48% had negative attitude towards practice of BSE and majority (62%) had a low practice. The study however, revealed that majority of the respondents who practice BSE do not know what to look for. The results further showed that, there is no significant relationship between age of the respondents and their awareness (X2 = 8.322; p = 0.0800; df = 4) and knowledge (X2 = 14.501; p = 0.264 and df = 8) of breast self examination. This study concluded that there is poor knowledge and attitude towards BSE practice among the secondary school teachers in Oko community and with unsatisfactory practice. It therefore, suggests that breast awareness campaign and self efficacy development is important for teachers in secondary schools to aid early detection and better prognosis of breast cancer in this community, and this will have a multiplier effect on female secondary school girls.
Globally, breast cancer is the most common malignant neoplasm among women [
Cancer is a group of diseases that cause any affected part of the body to change and grow out of control. Most types of cancer cells form a lump or mass called tumour, when the tumour metastasize they are transported to another part of the body where they continue to grow [
The high incidence of breast cancer necessitates the need for early detection since it aids early initiation of treatment thereby reducing mortality. Dolinsky [
A breast self examination can help women detect cysts or other benign (noncancerous) breast problems between checkups. It can also help some women detect breast cancer. It is easy to perform breast self-examination, and it only takes a few minutes. Although it might seem strange or inconvenient at first, it is a skill that all women can use throughout life to help ensure good breast health. There is also evidence that most of the early breast tumours are self-discovered and that the majority of early self-discoveries are by breast self examination (BSE) performers [
Kayode, Akande and Osagbemi [
The study employed a descriptive quantitative design to assess the knowledge and practice of breast self examination among female teachers in five secondary schools in Oko, Oyo State. Oko is a remote village in Iresa Adu Local Government Area of Oyo State. It has five secondary schools owned by government and private individuals. The target population comprises all female teachers in the village at the time of data collection. And it includes Baptist Grammar School (42), Muslim Comprehensive High School (27), First Baptist Church Academy (12), Juli Standard Secondary School (19) and Frontier Model College (13). This gives a total of one hundred and three (103) teachers. However, three of them could not be reached as a result of official assignment that made them not to be around.
Data was collected using a self-administered questionnaire developed through extensive literature search. The instrument was tested for validity and reliability before final usage. It consisted of closed-ended questions that were used to collect data that would meet the objectives of the study.
Permission to collect data was obtained from the Local Inspector of Education, Surulere Local Government Area, Iresa Adu. Further permission and approval was requested and obtained from principal of each school before the commencement of the study. Besides, informed consent was obtained from each respondent and they were assured of their confidentiality and anonymity of the information provided.
Data generated for the study was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 16). Statistical techniques employed include descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) and inferential statistics (chi square). Initial analysis was done by generation of frequency tables while further analysis involved crosstabulations to explore statistical relationships between variables.
One hundred questionnaires were administered to female secondary school teachers and all were returned completed. As presented in table 1, the age of the respondents ranged from 21 to 45 years with a mean 28 years (±6.2). Thirty-one respondents were between 26 - 30 years of age, majority (80%) of the respondents were Yoruba. Similarly, the educational profile revealed that a large proportion (43%) had National Certificate in Education (NCE) qualification, 46% were married and 65% were Christian.