Awareness and Health Belief of Ovarian Cancer among Women in an Urban Area

Park, Young Suk; Park, Jeong Sook

Abstract

PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the baseline awareness of symptoms and risk factors for ovarian cancer and to assess health beliefs in women.
METHODS
Women aged over 20 to under 70 years were recruited using convenient sampling (n=207). Questionnaire survey were included on demographics, symptoms/risk factors awareness, intention to test and health belief about ovarian cancer. Survey response rate was analyzed using SPSS Window version 21.0.
RESULTS
The level of ovarian cancer awareness was very low at an urban in South Korea. and the total score was 20~30 points. Especially, participants were not aware symptoms including indigestion, abdominal fullness and risk factors including late menopause, family history of ovarian/breast cancer and BRCA1/2 mutation carrier. Regarding main symptoms of ovarian cancer, 82.9% of participants did not choose to visit gynecology but they wanted to visit internists. In terms of Health beliefs, overall women agreed or strongly agreed for perceived seriousness and benefit, but the score of perceived sensitivity and barriers(inversed score) were poor with 2.02, 2.40 of 4, respectively.
CONCLUSION
Many symptoms and risk factors of ovarian cancer are not well-recognized by women. Therefore, evidence-based interventions are neeeded not only to improve women's awareness but also to detect at early stage of ovarian cancer. The results of this study highlights with the need for efforts to improve health beliefs.