United States: Aura D. Scherer, Ph.D., from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and her team studied breast cancer screening preferences among women aged 39 to 49 years using a decision aid (DA) tool. This tool was designed to help women understand their options for screening.
495 Women Without Breast Cancer or BRCA1/2 Mutations
The study included 495 women who had no history of breast cancer or known BRCA1/2 gene mutations, which increase the risk of breast cancer. The researchers surveyed these women before and after they used the DA to see how their opinions about mammogram screenings might change.
Findings
Before using the DA, 27.0% of the women preferred to delay getting a mammogram instead of having one at their current age. After they used the DA, this preference increased to 38.5%, meaning more women wanted to wait. However, the percentage of women who did not want a mammogram at all stayed the same, with 5.4% before using the DA and 4.3% afterward.
This shows that the decision aid influenced some women to choose to delay their screenings but did not change the number of women who decided against ever having a mammogram.
Participant Reactions to the DA
Laura D. the Schere who has done their research from the university of Colorado and the School of Medicine in the Aurora.
The risk for the breast cancer was lower for the participants who basically preferred to delay screening than those who preferred not to delay and overall 37. 4 percent of the total participants reported that the information about over the diagnosis was surprising as compared with the 27 percent and 22 percent of the information about the false positive results and screening benefits, respectively.
Expert Insights:
As reported in Medicalxpress, “These data emphasize the importance of reducing barriers to receiving desired care as well as informing Woman about mammography benefits, harms, and personal cancer risk estimates as a regular part of screening consultations,” the authors write.
The risk of breast cancer is becoming the major concern among the women nowadays, as the health experts are concerned about it also working with them to make sure that women won’t feel any trouble.