BELIEFS AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT CANCER AMONG EDUCATED SAUDI WOMEN IN RIYADH CITY

Eman Abdullah Alzaidi*, Shayma Abdulwasea Asrar, Abdulrahman Mohammed Alhumoud

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Negative cultural beliefs as well as financial barriers could reduce early detection and affect provision of optimal care for cancer patients. Even with sufficient resources provided for a prevention program, inability to identify those internal obstacles could decrease the program impact. The main aim of this study was to determine the knowledge and misconceptions about cancer among Saudi educated women. Methods: This is a cross sectional study carried out in the form of a survey using convenient sample of 155 educated Saudi female. The study participants were interviewed personally in major commercial centres in Riyadh city. A written consent was obtained before data collection and the response rate was very high in this study, since the data collected by trained data collectors using personal interview method. The data were entered and cleaned, then analysed using SPSS software version 20. Results: About 32% of study participants think they have adequate information about cancer. While the majority believes, cancer is a common disease in Saudi Arabia. Around 60% think that all the people who have cancer almost die. Only 17% believe traditional methods such as herbs, spell, or oriental medicine could treat cancer. Around 37% think that cancer is a God punishment, and 25% think that evil eye and envy is a cause of cancer. Conclusion: this study found younger, more educated women, women with positive familial history of cancer, or women obtained information from scientific sources have significantly higher level of knowledge of cancer and less false beliefs and misconceptions.

Keywords: Knowledge; Cancer; Misconceptions; Myths; Saudi.