The effect of breast cancer fear on early diagnosis behavior of women with a first degree relative with breast cancer

This study's aim is to examine the effect of women's breast cancer fear on early diagnosis behavior who have first degree relative with breast cancer. The population of this study consists of two groups as 108 women: One group as first-degree relatives whose women relatives stay in Hatay Mustafa Kemal University Research Hospital's Hematology-Oncology service with breast cancer diagnosis and another group as first-degree relatives whose women relatives consult to Hematology-Oncology day service, between 03 June-02 December 2019. Personal Information Form and Breast Cancer Fear Scale are used in the data collection. Data evaluated in IBM SPSS 22 program with frequency, percentage, mean, Anova, Post Hoc Tukey, Pearson correlation and regression analysis. As a result of the study, 25.0% of women do breast examination to themselves regularly, and do clinical breast examination and mammography with 23.1% and 19.4%, respectively. For women who have first-degree relatives with breast cancer, it is determined that as women's age increase, their scores on breast cancer fear scale decrease. It is found out that secondary school graduate women have higher scores on breast cancer fear scale than primary school graduate and illiterate women (p=0,02; p<0,01). It is found out that women whose mother have breast cancer have higher scores on breast cancer fear scale than women whose older or younger sister have breast cancer (p=0,013; p<0,05). It is also determined that menopausal women have higher scores on breast cancer fear scale than women who are not in menopausal period (p=0,021; p<0,05). Women's 57.4% have high-level breast cancer fear and there is not a statistically significant difference between breast cancer fear with women's early diagnosis behavior (p<0.05). In the result of the study, increasing awareness with attempts about early diagnosis behavior is suggested for women who have a relative with breast cancer, based on the genetic transition of breast cancer.