title: Breast Cancer Awareness at the Community Level among Women in Delhi, India.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To assess women's awareness from diverse sections of society in Delhi regarding various aspects of breast cancer (BC)--perceptions, signs and symptoms, risk factors, prevention, screening and treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  Community-level survey was undertaken in association with the Indian Cancer Society (ICS), Delhi during May 2013-March 2014. Women attending BC awareness workshops by ICS were given self-administered questionnaires before the workshop in the local language to assess BC literacy. Information provided by 2017 women was converted into awareness scores (aware=1) for analysis using SPSS. Awareness scores were dichotomized with median score=19 as cut off, create more aware and less aware categories. Bivariate and multivariate analysis provided P-values, odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Broadly, 53.4% women were aware about various aspects of BC. Notably, 49.1% women believed that BC was incurable and 73.9% women believed pain to be an initial BC symptom. Only 34.9% women performed breast self-examination (BSE) and 6.9% women had undergone clinical breast-examination/mammography. 40.5% women had higher awareness (awareness score>median score of 19), which was associated with education [graduates (OR=2.31; 95%CI=1.78, 3.16), post-graduates (OR=7.06; 95%CI=4.14, 12.05) compared to ≤high school] and socio-economic status (SES) [low-middle (OR=4.20; 95%CI=2.72, 6.49), middle (OR=6.00; 95%CI=3.82, 9.42) and upper (OR=6.97; 95%CI=4.10, 11.84) compared to low SES].
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  BC awareness of women in Delhi was suboptimal and was associated with low SES and education. Awareness must be drastically increased via community outreach and use of media as a first step in the fight against BC.
authors.affiliation: Indian Institute of Public Health-Delhi, Gurgaon, India E-mail : subhojit.dey@iiphd.org.
authors.forename: Subhojit
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dey
authors.forename: Arti
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mishra
authors.forename: Jyotsna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Govil
authors.forename: Preet K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Dhillon
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D016504:Breast Self-Examination / Q000523:psychology*; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008327:Mammography / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D010465:Perception; D011379:Prognosis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult