Impact of community-based educational intervention on breast cancer and its screening awareness among Arab women in the United Arab Emirates

Objectives: Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women worldwide as well as in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Improving awareness is an important aspect of BC control. Our study explored whether a community-based educational intervention was an effective approach for improving the awareness of BC and its screening procedures and promoting health behavior change. Methods: The study was carried out as a pre-post-test design among 250 Arab women. Baseline awareness (pre-intervention) regarding BC and its screening procedures was assessed using a validated structured questionnaire adapted from the Breast Module of Cancer Awareness Measure. Educational intervention on BC was administered after baseline knowledge assessment. The impact of this intervention was evaluated through the post-intervention questionnaire after four weeks. Results: Statistically significant improvement was observed in all the BC knowledge domains after the educational intervention. Highest percentage change in knowledge (56.4%) between pre- and post-intervention was seen for BC risk factors. Stratified analyses revealed that the intervention proved more beneficial to the women with no formal education as compared to those with formal education (mean difference: 7.27 ± 5.29; p = 0.001). Post-intervention the women were more positive towards medical help-seeking and acknowledged the fact that BC diagnosed early is more treatable (% change: 24.0, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The community-based educational intervention, aimed at improving the knowledge of Arab women towards BC, proved to be effective in raising awareness of the study population. Further efforts are required to ascertain that this augmented awareness is retained in the long term and translated into required health behavior changes.