ABSTRACT
Introduction: Breast cancer is the most common cancer of women worldwide. Early diagnosis of it has a very important role in its management. Breast self-examination (BSE) is a key to the early diagnosis of breast cancer. Materials and Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 300 females of Jaipur city. This study was conducted by a house-to-house survey through a systematic random sampling technique in the field practice area of the Urban Health Training Centre (UHTC) of SMS medical college, Jaipur (Rajasthan), India. A predesigned semi-structured questionnaire containing predesigned questions regarding knowledge and practice of BSE was used to collect data. A Chi-square test was used to find out associations. Results: Only 18% of females were aware of BSE and 5.7% of the females were practicing BSE. Health professionals (31.03%) were the main source of knowledge. Only 50% of females who have heard the name of BSE, knew that it is performed by self. Awareness and practice of BSE both were found to be associated with religion, education, socioeconomic status, and occupation and there was no association with age and marital status. Females with higher education and socioeconomic status were more aware of BSE. The most common (94.69%) reason for not practicing BSE was the lack of awareness of steps followed by ‘find it unnecessary’. Conclusion: As knowledge and practice of BSE were observed very poor and considering the important role that can be played by BSE in the early diagnosis and management of breast cancer, there is an urgent need to implement and reinforce BSE in the existing cancer awareness and screening programs. IEC activities regarding BSE also motivated proper knowledge of BSE.