Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyze the affecting factors on breast self-examination of middle-aged women in Korea. The subjects were 141 women on Jeju Island, and materials were collected through an organized questionnaire from March to August 2002. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, chi2 -test, A-nova and Discriminant analysis by the SAS program. The major results are as follows; 1. 53% of the subjects performed the breast self-examination. The practice of breast self-examination was correlated with the education level, income, low salt diet, more than 30 minutes of regular exercise. 2. Attitudes towards breast self-examination were not a significant practice regarding breast self-examination. However, the cognition about difficulty of breast self-examination partly showed an important barrier factor to the positive attitude. 3. The average self-efficacy concerning breast self-examination was 3.03. The stages of change related to the subjects showed that a contemplation stage was high. 4. With a stepwise multiple regression, the most significant factor on self-efficacy related with breast self-examination was the contemplation stage, 30-40 aged women, high income, regular exercise, low salt diet, family cancer history, etc. 5. With the discriminant analysis, the most important factors related with the practice of the breast self-examination were income and self-efficacy. The power of discriminant was 59%. The results of this study suggests that programs should be developed to promote practice and the self-efficacy related with breast self-examination.