title: Awareness and practices regarding breast and cervical cancer among Turkish women in Gazientep.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cancer is a major public health problem both in our country and worldwide due to its disease burden, fatality and tendency for increased incidence. In Turkey, breast cancer ranks first with an incidence of 41.6% and cervical cancer is the tenth most common cancer with an incidence of 4.4%.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with 240 women aged from 15 to 65 years admitted to a gynecology-obstetrics outpatient clinic of a private hospital in Gaziantep. Study data were collected by the investigators through a 36-item questionnaire form which was generated using information gathered from similar surveys in the literature.
  
  
  RESULTS
  It was determined that 34.6% of women were high-school graduates, and 64.2% had a medium income level. The majority (79.2%) stated that they never performed BSE and 49.5% of them said that they did not know how to do it. Some 79.2% did not know what a Pap smear was and 73.3% had not experienced a smear test ever.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this study, we found that most of the women had insufficient knowledge of breast and cervical cancer, while knowledge and practices increased with the education level. Based on these findings, we suggest that there is a need for planning, implementation and assessment of health policies and healthcare services at the national and regional level and we believe that nurses working in the field of protective health services should develop educational programmes for women with a primary focus on cancer in order to increase awareness among the female population in Turkey.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Gaziantep, Turkey E-mail : karadag@gantep.edu.tr.
authors.forename: Gulendam
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Karadag
authors.forename: Zeynep
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gungormus
authors.forename: Ramazan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Surucu
authors.forename: Esen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Savas
authors.forename: Fulya
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bicer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000517:prevention & control; D016504:Breast Self-Examination / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014421:Turkey; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000517:prevention & control; D014626:Vaginal Smears; D055815:Young Adult