Turkish women breast self-examination knowledge and practices: a systematic review

Abstract

Breast self-exam is not accepted as an early detection method for breast cancer. However, it is still an important health behavior for women to recognize their own breasts, especially in societies with serious differences in accessing health services due to socioeconomic factors. This paper aims to report on a systematic review of the gather scientific evidence regarding the breast selfexamination knowledge and practices among Turkish women. In this study, combination of the terms “breast cancer, breast cancer screening, early diagnosis, BSE, health knowledge, practices, attitudes, health education and Turkey were searched in the eight databases between January 2010 to 2017. Papers were selected by pre-defined inclusion criteria and subsequently critically appraised. Key themes were extracted and synthesized. The initial search identified 286 articles and a total of 36 studies met the inclusion criteria in the review. The majority (n = 9) of the studies were published in 2015. Sixteen studies were published in Turkish and the others in English. It was observed that the state of knowing breast self-examination was min: 13.5% and max: 99.9%. Performing of the BSE was a rate of min: 0.0% and max: 78.5%. This systematic review demonstrated a lot of heterogeneity in population and design of researches about BSE knowledge and practices in Turkey. In the systematic review, BSE will add originality to the studies to be planned for knowledge and practice in raising breast cancer awareness. Researchers will provide the opportunity to plan studies that will contribute to the literature with different methods instead of repetitive results.