Family Physician Performance In Screening of Breast Cancer in El- Sheikh Zayed Family Medicine Center

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most common female cancer in the US, the second most common cause of cancer death in women, and the main cause of death in women ages 40 to 59 .The most important risk factors are family history and hormonal factors (Jemal et al., 2010). Breast cancer screening is defined as the medical screening of asymptomatic, apparently healthy women for breast cancer in an attempt to achieve an earlier diagnosis. The assumption is that early detection will improve outcomes. A number of screening test have been employed including: clinical and self breast exams, mammography, genetic screening, ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (Schonberg, 2010). The family physician should be the first doctor that a woman is consulting for general medical ailments because of the built rapport and friendship with the physician and therefore she will be more comfortable and more amenable to advices from him/her (Beswal, 2013). Also, Primary care physicians can significantly alter the behavior of their patients with regard to regular breast examinations (Maria et al., 2013). Although screening for breast cancer is a routine policy that should be done to every client in the family planning unit at the family medicine centers, physicians don’t perform such function. The aim of our study is to measure the performance and attitude of the family (primary health care) physicians working in the family medicine center in EL-Sheikh Zayed City, regarding screening for breast masses & to identify different factors that may limit optimum performance. The number of participated physicians was 10. They were observed during their clinical breast examination to 100 female patients (10 for each physician) who attended for family planning clinic in family medicine centre in EL-Sheikh Zayed city. Half of the physicians are males and the other half are females with the age ranging from 26 to 41years with mean ± SD (30.3±4.3), duration since graduation ranged from 4 to 19 years with mean± SD (8.4±4.3). 30% of participated physician were of family medicine speciality and 50% were primary health care physicians. The age of studied females ranged from 19 to 50 years with mean ± SD (34.1±7.9). More than half of them are educated (51%) and 49% are non-educated. The age of menarche ranged from 8 to 14 with mean± SD (11.7±1.2). Age of 1st birth ranged from 16 to 30 with mean± SD (22.5±3.1). 49% of the studied females had a family history of breast cancer. 51%had no family history. 58% of studied females have