Women's breast cancer screening behavior and patient activation

Breast cancer, which ranks second among cancer-related deaths in many countries around the world, is a common disease type. With current screening methods, these deaths can be prevented by providing early diagnosis, but breast cancer screening rates are very low in our country. The concept of patient activity emphasizes the ability and willingness of patients to take action independently to manage their health and care. The patient activity level measurement tool (PAM) evaluates the knowledge, skills, beliefs and confidence of the individual in order to manage their health and health care. Theories explaining human behavior are closely related to patient activity. Until today, many theories (health focus of control, self-efficacy theory, health belief model) that define and predict human behavior and behavioral change have been developed. When these scales and methods are examined, it is seen that they do not contain all the elements of activation. Hibbard revealed that their tendency to focus on predicting a narrow range of behaviors is a disadvantage of behavioral theories defined to date, and stated that patient activity includes a wider range of elements (1). In order to increase the screening rates, it is important to know at which active stage the patient is. The aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between patient activity level and breast cancer screening behavior in women. This study, which was planned in a cross-sectional analytical study model, was applied to 386 women aged 20-69 who applied to Gaziemir No.11 Education Family Health Center, by means of face-to-face interview method and the sociodemographic data form and patient activity level scale. A significant relationship was found between the behavior of performing breast self-examination and patient activity level (p < ,05), between clinical breast examination behavior and patient activity level (p < ,01) and between mammography behavior and patient activity level (p < ,01) in women aged 20-69. In addition, significant differences were found between patient activity level and sociodemographic relationships.