Elsevier

Public Health

Volume 133, April 2016, Pages 63-66
Public Health

Short communication
Breast screening knowledge and barriers among under/never screened women

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2015.11.028Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Confirms much of what is known about barriers to breast screening in Canada, and adds unique information.

  • Hints that some of the known barriers to screening have underlying causes that may vary by region.

  • Women need to be better informed about screening benefits, accessibility, lack of cost, the process, and to know they may request a female technician.

  • Screening staff need to be informed of their importance in future screening attendance, as their behaviour affects a woman's likelihood of returning for screening.

Section snippets

Ethical approval

Research Ethics Approval for this project was received from University of Toronto Research Ethics Board (protocol #25744).

Funding

The authors received financial (grant) support for this research from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation – Ontario Region.

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests or conflict of interest on this project.

First page preview

First page preview
Click to open first page preview

References (10)

  • Cancer Quality Council of Ontario

    Breast cancer screening participation. Cancer system quality index

    (2014)
  • K. Hanson et al.

    Factors influencing mammography participation in Canada: an integrative review of the literature

    Curr Oncol

    (2009)
  • C.J. Maxwell et al.

    Predictors of mammography use among Canadian women aged 50-69. Findings from the 1996/97 national population health Survey

    Can Med Assoc J

    (2001)
  • B.A. Israel et al.

    Review of community-based research: assessing partnership approaches to improve public health

    Annu Rev Public Health

    (1998)
  • S.F. Jackson

    A participatory group process to analyze qualitative data

    Prog Community Heal Partnersh

    (2008)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (11)

  • Heterogeneity in how women value risk-stratified breast screening

    2022, Genetics in Medicine
    Citation Excerpt :

    Women from lower socioeconomic and disadvantaged groups are underrepresented in NBSPs. Social factors such as travel time, parking costs, and carer’s responsibility are well-described barriers, whereas access-enhancing interventions disproportionately increase the participation of disadvantaged women.34 A similar association was found in this study.

  • Reasons for non-participation in public oncological screening programs in the Italian region Friuli Venezia Giulia

    2020, Public Health
    Citation Excerpt :

    In the Netherlands, personal beliefs were important.14 Barriers to initial uptake or to repeat adherence to cancer screening have been variously categorized: some researchers have grouped factors into health care, social, and individual;15 others, into fear/anxiety, misinformation, beliefs, accessibility, personal and social factors, and negative previous experiences.7 What is clear is that explanations for non-adherence to screening programs are multifaceted, context dependent, and related to the particular screening program.

  • Cancer screening barriers and facilitators for under and never screened populations: A mixed methods study

    2016, Cancer Epidemiology
    Citation Excerpt :

    Our qualitative finding that fear of the test (i.e. the test being perceived as too painful, too embarrassing, too scary, or too invasive; fear of the test, fear of test results, and fear of dying) was a powerful barrier to cancer screening (Table 1) was reinforced when our quantitative results indicated that the test being less scary, painful, or uncomfortable was a significant facilitator for UNS (Table 3). Fear as a barrier also triangulates with the published literature, which unpacks multiple layers of fear influencing cancer screening participation including: fear of interacting with the medical system, fear of undressing, fear of the test, fear of pain, fear of test results, fear of disclosing, and fear of cancer [32–37]. The influence of family or friends was also a significant facilitator of cancer screening (Table 3).

  • Barriers to Screening At-risk Populations in Canada

    2023, Canadian Association of Radiologists Journal
View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text