title: The nurse's role in self-breast examination education.
abstract: Do you feel comfortable with your own knowledge of self-breast examination enough to educate a patient? Assessing a patient's compliance of performing self-breast examinations should entail not only if she merely does the examination, but when she is doing them and how she is doing them. There is evidence-based practice that portrays the proper way to perform a self-breast examination. If you, as the primary nurse, are not educated on proper techniques of a self-breast examination, it is your responsibility to provide a resource to the patient that can properly demonstrate this. Women should be educated on the proper way to do a self-breast examination. The first steps should include the ideal time of month to perform the examination. This will allow women to know what is normal breast tissue and what is abnormal to aide in early detection of breast cancer. Utilizing the tools of self-breast examination, yearly mammograms and clinical breast examinations, together with consistency, are the best protection in detecting early breast cancers.
authors.affiliation: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center, Columbus, OH 43212, USA. misty.nichols@osumc.edu
authors.forename: Misty
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nichols
mesh_terms: D016504:Breast Self-Examination / Q000379:methods / Q000451:nursing*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D024802:Nurse's Role; D010353:Patient Education as Topic