Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Clinical Psychology) in the Department of Psychology University of Zululand, South Africa, 2011. / The main purpose of the study was to investigate whether female high school learners are
knowledgeable of and practise breast self examination. The pre-measurement and postmeasurement
single group design was used to ascribe differences between the pre- and postmeasurements
to the experimental intervention. The sample was focused on two groups:
multiracial (n = 56) and rural high school (n = 71) learners. These two groups were
interviewed using a structured questionnaire (Pillay, 2002) assessing their knowledge and
practice regarding breast self examination.
The age range of the participants was between 14 and 21 years with a mean age of 16.65
years. Results showed that more than half (62.9%) of the total sample were aware of breast
self examination. Older learners in higher grades were more knowledgeable about breast self
examination than those who were younger and doing lower grades. Of those learners who
were aware of breast self examination, 57.5% practiced BSE. Breast cancer awareness
programme that was provided during the study had a great impact on the responses of the
learners. Knowledge of BSE had a significant improvement. Public health education is a
factor that impacts on young women’s knowledge and understanding of breast cancer. Based
on these young women’s responses, it has been concluded that current public health
education is either not communicating its message or failing to reach enough women. Based
on this assumption and the knowledge that most breast awareness campaigns are aimed at
older women, it is recommended that an important improvement may be to target women at
younger ages to educate them about what is normal or not, and what they should know and be
aware of regarding their bodies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uzulu/oai:uzspace.unizulu.ac.za:10530/1096 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Phungula, Phumla |
| Contributors | Dhlomo-Sibiya, R.M. |
| Publisher | University of Zululand |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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