A STUDY TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STRUCTURED TEACHING PROGRAMME ON KNOWLEDGE REGARDING BREAST SELF-EXAMINATION AMONG WOMEN AT A SELECTED HOSPITAL, KOLAR

Introduction: Every year we celebrate the womens International Day, inspiring the women of today to stride a head in life. While women have made progress in most off the field but still her tends to in inexplicably neglect her own health.The breast self-examination is an examination of the breast, performed by a woman, ideally one time per month. The goal of the breast self-examination is for women to notice changes in the breast that should be brought to the attention of physician for further evaluation, these include breast lumps, changes in the breast shape, size or contour. Objective:To assess the knowledge of women regarding Breast Self-Examination and to determine the effectiveness of planned teaching on Breast Self-Examination by comparing pretest and post-test knowledge scores and to find association between knowledge and selected demographic variables. Methods:The research design adopted for the study was Pre - experimental one group pretestpost-test design, with a sample size 30 women who are newly admitted in medical, surgical and gynaec wardsat R.L.J.H & RC,Kolarby using simple random sampling technique. The data was collected on 30 women by using knowledge questionnaire regarding Breast Self-Examination. Results:The pretestmean knowledge scores of 6.53 with SD 2.15 whereas inn the post-test, the mean scores was 14.8 with SD 1.11 and the calculated t value was 20.41 indicating highly significant. Hence there was difference between pretest and post-test knowledge scores, the research hypothesis is accepted. Conclusion:The study concluded that, structured teaching programme helped the women to improve their knowledge regarding Breast Self-Examination and its importance with an increase in the post-test knowledge score from 35% to 75%.