A Study of Teaching through Text Messaging and Pamphlet effect ‎on women’s Behavior about Breast Cancer, 2014‎

Introduction: Breast caner is one of the most prevalent of mortality rate in women. The current research was aimed to compare the effect of two instruction methods of Text Messaging and Pamphlet on women's knowledge, attitude and Behavior about Breast Cancer.

Methods: This pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study was carried out on 90 women visiting the healthcare service of Kamyaran city. The study samples were selected through simple sampling technique and were randomly assigned to three groups, including two experimental groups and one control group. The instrument for data collection was a researcher-made questionnaire whose content and face validity was confirmed by the women’s healthcare experts and authorities. The reliability of the questionnaire, was calculated to be 0.77 by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS-19 software.

Results: The findings indicated that the experimental treatment increased women's preventive behavior about mammographic test. The text messaging group performed significantly better than the control group (p=0.044) and the control group in general knowledge about breast cancer (p=0.049) and knowledge about risk factors of breast cancer (p=0.025). Also, regarding the attitude, text messaging group performed significantly better than the control group (p=0.004). However, no statistically significant difference was reported about other hypothesis.  

Conclusion: Given the positive effect of text messaging compared with pamphlet and common educational methods, it is recommended to be used as a self-care training technique in women for the early diagnosis of breast cancer and follow-up preventive measures.