Predictors of Breast Self Examination Practice among North Korean Immigrant Women

Mi Yeul Hyun; Hyo Jeong Song; Eun Joo Lee; Seong Chul Hong; Sung Yob Kim; Chang Hyun Lee

doi:10.15384/kjhp.2015.15.1.9

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Hyun, Song, Lee, Hong, Kim, and Lee: Predictors of Breast Self Examination Practice among North Korean Immigrant Women

Original Article

Korean J Health Promot 2015;15(1):9-15.

Published online: 19 December 2015

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15384/kjhp.2015.15.1.9

Predictors of Breast Self Examination Practice among North Korean Immigrant Women

Mi Yeul Hyun¹, Hyo Jeong Song¹, Eun Joo Lee¹, Seong Chul Hong², Sung Yob Kim², Chang Hyun Lee²

¹College of Nursing, Jeju National University, Jeju, Korea

²Jeju National University School of Medicine, Jeju, Korea

Corresponding author：Hyo Jeong Song, RN, PhD College of Nursing, Jeju National University, 102 Jeju Daehakno, Jeju 690-756, Korea Tel: +82-64-754-3885 Fax: +82-64-702-2686 E-mail: hjsong@jejunu.ac.kr

This study was funded by a research grant from the Jeju National University Hospital.

Received 30 October 2014 Accepted 10 February 2015

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background

Breast cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in women worldwide. Immigrant women face cultural and social impediments, discrimination, and emotional and mental stressors; and they participate less in breast cancer prevention services. Breast self examination (BSE) may be effective in early detection. The purpose of this descriptive cross-sectional study was to identify the practice of BSE and to examine predictors related to the practice of BSE among North Korean female immigrants residing in South Korea.

Methods

Data were collected from a convenience sample of 131 North Korean female immigrants aged 20 years through 65 years who had attended community centers, local churches, and women's gatherings located in Incheon, Kyeongkido, Seoul, and Jeju.

Results

This study found that 17.6% of the women performed BSE and 8.4% were taught the methods of detecting breast cancer including BSE. Two significant predictors to performing BSE were found- good perceived health status (P=.003)and education about breast cancer screening and the breast self examination (P<.001).

Conclusions

The results showed that North Korean female immigrants who were taught the detecting methods of breast cancer including BSE were more likely to practice BSE.

Keywords: Breast self-examination, Immigrants, Practice

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Table 1.

General characteristics, depressive symptoms, and acculturative stress (n=131)

Characteristics	Categories	N (%)	Mean±SD
Age, y	20-39	72 (55.0)	36.4±11.4
	40-65	59 (45.0)
Education status	Middle school or under	34 (25.9)
	High school or over	97 (74.1)
Marital status	Married	51 (38.9)
	Other status	80 (61.1)
Employment status	Employed	48 (36.6)
	Unemployed	83 (63.4)
Length of residence in South Korea, mo	<12	25 (19.1)	43.0±34.0
	12-60	73 (55.7)
	>60	33 (25.2)
Menstruation status	Yes	103 (78.6)
	Menopause	28 (21.4)
Perceived health status	Good	26 (19.8)
	Bad	105 (80.2)
Depressive symptoms	No (<21)	66 (50.4)	21.7±11.9
	Yes (≥21)	65 (49.6)
Acculturative stress			92.4±14.4

Table 2.

Breast self examination and education on breast cancer screening and the breast self examination (n=131)

Characteristics	N (%)
Perform breast self examination
Yes	23 (17.6)
No	108 (82.4)
Received education on breast cancer screening and the breast self examination
Yes	11 (8.4)
No	120 (91.6)

Table 3.

Bivariate relationships between variables and performing breast self examination

Characteristics	Performs BSE (n=23)		Not perform BSE (n=108)		χ² or t	P
Characteristics	N(%)	Mean±SD	N (%)	Mean ± SD	χ² or t	P
Age, y		37.9±9.2		36.1±11.9	0.66	0.513
Education
Middle school or under	4 (17.4)		30 (27.8)		1.06	0.302
High school or over	19 (82.6)		78 (72.2)
Marital status
Married	8 (34.8)		43 (39.8)		0.20	0.653
Other status	15 (65.2)		65 (60.2)
Employment status
Employed	10 (43.5)		38 (35.2)		0.56	0.453
Unemployed	13 (56.5)		70 (64.8)
Length of residence in South Korea, mo		39.1±28.7		43.9±35.1	-0.60	0.552
Status of menstruation
Yes	19 (82.6)		84 (77.8)		0.26	0.607
Menopause	4 (17.4)		24 (22.2)
Perceived health status
Good	9 (39.1)		17 (15.7)		6.52	0.010
Bad	14 (60.9)		91 (84.3)
Depressive symptoms		23.3±10.3		21.4±12.3	0.71	0.481
Acculturative stress		94.2±10.5		92.0±15.2	0.64	0.520
Received education on breast cancer screening and breast self examination
Yes	6 (26.1)		5 (4.6)		11.35	<0.001
No	17 (73.9)		103 (95.4)

Abbreviation: BSE, breast self examination.

Table 4.

Factors associated with performing breast self examination

	Parameter estimate	Standard error	P	Odds ratio	95% CI
Perceived health status^a	1.664	0.565	0.003	5.3	1.74-16.01
Received education on breast cancer screening and breast self examination^b	2.354	0.729	<0.001	10.5	2.52-43.96

Abbreviation: CI, confidence interval.

^a Dummy variable: Good is a reference value.

^b Dummy variable: Yes is a reference value.

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