Developing and testing the effectiveness of an educational booklet about breast self examination on university nursing students' knowledge and practices

The aims of this study were to develop an educational booklet about breast self-examination and test its effectiveness on University Nursing Students' knowledge and practices. A pre and post-test with no control group design was adopted in this study. A convenient sample of 212 Nursing students at the Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University, who accepted to participate in the study and enrolled in the first academic year, during the first semester (2001-2002) were included in this study. A specially designed, self-administered questionnaire sheet was used and analyzed to determine the level of Nursing students' knowledge and practices related to BSE. According to Nursing students' needs, an educational booklet about BSE was developed and given to them. After 3 months, reassessment of Nursing students' knowledge and practices was carried out using the same questionnaire sheet to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed booklet. The study revealed a general lack of knowledge and practices related to BSE among Nursing students, where poor total score of knowledge and practices was obtained by most of them before distribution of the educational booklet. The study also revealed that the developed educational booklet about BSE had an obvious effect on improving Nursing students' knowledge and practices regarding BSE, where a highly significant difference was found between their knowledge and practices before and after distribution of the educational booklet. So, improving the health behavior, especially BSE, among Nursing students is needed to help them assume their responsibility towards prevention. This should be carried through the use of the currently developed educational booklet about BSE by all Nursing students.