Psychological factors influencing the diagnosis delay of breast cancer in women

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) IS the most common cause of malignancy among Iranian women. It is ranked first among women cancers in Iran.Early treatment is associated with better prognosis when compared to worse outcomes related to delayed diagnosis. Delay in the diagnosis of BC is associated with advanced stage and low survival time. The delayed diagnosis is more responsible rather than the disease itself in causing mortality of the patients. Traditionally BC delay has been classified in two types:(1) patient related delay(PRD) or prehospital delay, and (2) system related delay(SRD) or hospital delay. Prolonged delay usually defines as intervals between the patients first detecting symptom and first consultation. There are so many factors affecting patient delay but one of the impotant factors is psychological factors. This study conducted for patient related delay whith psychological factors. The primary goal was to identify the psychological factors such as perception, learning, education and believese. There is a few study about effect of psychological factors in diagnosis delay. Materials and Methods: This study is an exploratory research, which conducted among 150 women with breast cancer during 8 months’ period in a private oncology clinic in Tabriz. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were included in the study and every patient accepted informed consent and signed the forms. Questionnaire has been developed through findings of the past studies and expert panel opinions. We checked correlation, clarity, simplicity and importance of each question during a pilot study with 10 patients for assessing the internal correlation. Validity and reliability of the questionnaire were approved by statistical methods. Data has analyzed with descriptive and analytic statistical methods by SPSS software. Results: This study developed a questionnaire with accepted validity and reliability for assessing psychological factors affecting patients delay in Iranian women with breast cancer. 17 out of 19 items of questionnaire were meaningful and had ability for evaluating of psychological factors. Among these psychological factors the elements like, fear of cancer detection, lack of knowledge of screening methods and self-exam, poor knowledge about the importance of early diagnosis were important factors for delayed detection of BC among participants.