Iranian Journal of

Introduction: Cancer is considered as the main cause of death in the developed countries and the second leading cause of death in the developing countries. Breast cancer has a high prevalence in Iran. Therefore, this study was done to investigate the awareness of female students of Kashan University of Medical Sciences about the risk factors of breast cancer.

Methods: This study was a cross-sectional study. Out of 1,000 questionnaires, 941 were fully responded. The first section of the questionnaire contained the demographic data and the second part consisted of 9 questions about risk factors of breast cancer. According to the information the students had about breast cancer, points of weak, average and good were assigned. Using SPSS 16 software, all the collected data were entered and then Kruskal-Wallis test was used for statistical analysis.

Results: Results showed that out of 941 questionnaires, 323 were married and 618 were single. The average point assigned to the students for their knowledge about risk factors was 5.77 out of 9 which showed moderate awareness. Nursing and midwifery students with the average scores of 7.62 had the highest awareness among other faculty students. The average awareness score of faculty of Medicine, Health and Paramedical was 5.98, 5.36 and 4.12 respectively.

Conclusion: The results of this study show that female students of Kashan University of Medical Sciences had a moderate awareness about risk factors of breast cancer. Therefore, training is necessary and should be provided to the students who will be responsible in future.