A Study to Assess the Knowledge and Practice of Breast Self Examination (BSE) on Staff Nurses Working in Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara Nepal

Nepal is a small landlocked country, between the world's two largest growing economies, India and China. Given its small size of 147,181 square kilometers, the country has a population of approximately 30 million and with the estimated cancer incidence of 50,000 - 70,000 per year. Cancer is identified as one of the major non-communicable disease (NCD). NCD are responsible for 42% of total deaths, cancer in 7% contributing to a major public health burden. Research in this field will be easier to bring plans and programs to contain breast cancer and untimely death due to breast cancer in Nepal.3

The study was conducted to explore the knowledge and practice of nurses regarding breast self-examination (BSE) in Manipal teaching hospital Pokhara. Nurses working in different areas of the hospital constituted the study population. A total of 100 staff nurses participated in the study. A self-administered, pre-tested, structured questionnaire was administered for data collection. The descriptive statistics and chi square test were used to analyze the data.

The study result reflects that 84% of the participants belongs to the age group of 20-25years, 82% of them are completed PCL nursing with 1–2 years of experience.62% had source of information through professional education. 84% of the staff nurses possess average knowledge on BSE and with 70% of them under average practice of BSE. 80% of the staff nurses are aware about BSE, 80% of the staff nurses done BSE and only 30% of them are practicing monthly once and 60% of them performing after 3–4 days of menstruation. 50% of the staff nurses are started BSE at the age of 20 and 62% of them know about the indications of breast problems during BSE technique. 60% of them are well answered the position and palpation technique of BSE. 90% of the staff nurses are known BSE is very important procedure to identify breast abnormality. There is no significant association between knowledge, practice with demographic variables at (p<0.05). The overall knowledge is 49.2% and practice is 41.06%. There is no correlation between knowledge and practice.

Nurses have average knowledge and practice on breast self examination. Researchers should motivate the health professionals to enhance their knowledge and practice on breast self examination in order to educate the clients in early identification of breast cancer and other abnormalities.