Epidemiology & Public Health

Introduction & Objective: Breast cancer became one of the most common cancer worldwide accounting for 627,000 mortalities which is 15% of all cancer deaths. In Jordan, a lower-middle class income country, breast cancer accounts for 20.6% of new cancer cases with a mortality of 11.5%. Due to increasing breast cancer prevalence; the Jordanian Breast Cancer Program (JBCP) was founded to orchestrate national efforts and increase awareness on breast cancer screening and early detection. Several approaches have been taken, such as community based approaches including one to one sessions and one to group sessions. JBCP has acquired on conducting educational lectures throughout the Kingdom in order to raise awareness, change attitudes and inbound practices of breast cancer screening and early detection. Method: Data collected from pre and post-educational session’s evaluation was collected throughout the years of 2011-2015 in order to assess the improvement in the communities’ knowledge. A total of 11,873 questionnaires were collected and the data was entered, coded, and analyzed by the SPSS program. Results: Results have shown that after the educational session 68% of participants knew how to perform self-breast examination and 83% had planned to visit a healthcare provider to undergo clinical breast examination while 66% will undergo mammogram. The knowledge difference was assessed and there was 41% increase in the participant’s knowledge of breast cancer and its screening and early detection methods. Conclusion: With the efforts that JBCP has put in order to raise awareness on breast cancer, it has also coupled in facilitating the examinations to the participants in order to aid in transforming knowledge into practice.