Breast Cancer Awareness among Medical Students in Georgia

Background: As awareness is the key tool for better prognosis, it is important for every kind of population. Being one of the most common cancers, also being associated with the high mortality rates, breast cancer awareness should be prevalent. As future doctors, medical students have the responsibility of educating the general population. To carry out such duties, they should possess enough knowledge about the subject. This study probes the extent of their knowledge.Methodology: An online questionnaire containing 15 questions of various formats was made and distributed to the students of Tbilisi State Medical University via E-mails. The collected data were processed in Microsoft Excel sheets. Answers from pre-clinical and clinical year students were analyzed separately.Results: A total of 225 responses were collected. More females (n=167) participated in the survey than males (n=56). A very low number of students selected correct answers to the epidemiological questions regarding the most common cancer among men, women, and the overall Georgian population. Despite attending awareness programs and having close contact with cancer patients, students showed a lack of awareness.Conclusion: There was no significant difference in knowledge or awareness noticed between pre-clinical and clinical students. Lack of knowledge despite having attended previous awareness programs and having close contact with cancer patients shows the lack of cognizance in students and their inability to retain information. This strongly indicates the need for more intensive activities on cancer awareness not only for students but also for the general population