Breast cancer prevention: what women think about the illness, its risks and self-care

Background: Early detection of breast cancer (BC) is important to reduce mortality rates. To prevent BC, women should adopt self-care behaviors. This study aimed at examining risk and illness perception and self-care of healthy women regarding breast cancer. Methods: Participants were 211 women (M = 59.11 years, SD = 8.54) and with no personal history of the illness, selected by convenience. Measures were a sociodemographic, clinical and health behavior questionnaire, illness perception and risk perception questionnaires. Nonparametric statistics (Spearman) was employed to analyze the relationship between illness perception, risk perception and sociodemographic variables. The open answers to the causes of the illness were classified according to the content analysis. Results: We found a relationship between risk and illness perception and self-care in healthy women regarding BC. It was identified that women had reasonable illness coherence (M = 3.18) and considered the illness more timeline chronic than timeline acute (M = 3.22), reasonable timeline cyclical (M = 3.56), with severe consequences for health (M = 4.22), and reasonably threatening (M = 3.15). Conclusions: BC and risk perception and self-care are interrelated variables among healthy women.Introducción: La detección precoz del câncer de mama (CM) es importante para reducir los índices de mortalidade. Para prevenirlo, la mujer debe adoptar conductas de autocuidado en salud. El objetivo es examinar la percepción de riesgo, la percepción de la enfermedad y el autocuidado de mujeres sanas con relación al CM. Método: Participaron 211 mujeres (M = 59,11 años; DP = 8,54),sin histórico de CM seleccionadas por conveniencia. Los instrumentos fueron cuestionário de datos sociodeográficos, clínicos y de conductas em salud, cuestionários de percepción de la enfermedad y percepción de riesgo. Estadística no paramétrica (Spearman) ha sido utilizada para examinar la relación entre percepción de la enfermedad, de riesgo y variables sociodemográficas. Las preguntas abiertas sobre las causas de la enfermedad fueron clasificadas a través de análisis de contenido. Resultados: Se observó que existe relación entre percepción de riesgo y de la enfermedady el autocuidado em mujeres sanas. Se identifico que las mujeres tienen razonable percepción de comprehensión de la enfermedad (M = 3,18), la consideran más crónica que aguda (M=3,22), razonablemente cíclioca (M = 3,36), con consecuencias graves a la salud (M = 4,22) y relativamente amenazadora (M = 3,15). Conclusiones: la percepción del CM, la percepción de riesgo y el autocuidado son variables inter-relacionadas em mujeres sanas