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TORONTO (CP) - Women who don't believe they would be able to overcome a health problem like breast cancer are less likely to be screened for the disease, says a McMaster University researcher.
Nursing professor Margaret Black wondered why, despite evidence pointing to the benefits of regular mammography for post-menopausal women, some older women consistently forgo breast cancer screening.
In interviews, Black found that women who feared a health problem but felt unable to do anything about it were less likely to take preventive measures. Conversely, women who feared an ailment but felt they could survive it were more likely to take action.
"They're the women who are more likely to get screened," Black said Thursday. "They were seven times more likely to get screened."
Her study, published in the April issue of Health Education and Behaviour, was released Friday.
Breast cancer is the most common form of the disease to hit women. Last year more than 19,000 women in Canada learned they had breast cancer and 5,500 died of the disease, according to Canadian Cancer Society estimates.
Breast cancer rates rise dramatically as women enter their post-menopausal years, which is why it is recommended that women over 50 have a mammogram every two years.
While mammograms aren't perfect, a report issued Thursday by a U.S. congressional advisory panel said the screening tool is still the best option for early detection of breast cancer.
"Mammography is still the best way we have," said Dr. Janet Baum, a Harvard Medical School radiologist who co-authored the report.
The panel suggested more study should be done on new detection technologies, including MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and highly touted digital mammograms.
Experts say routine mammogram screening can cut breast cancer deaths by 25 to 30 per cent.
Studies have found, though, that women over 70 are more likely to forgo screening than those aged 50 to 69 and Black wanted to know why.
It certainly wasn't because they were less susceptible to the disease.
"No, the evidence does not show that at all. There's a straight relationship with increasing age and increasing incidence of breast cancer," she said.
Black interviewed 198 women aged 50 to 75 to assess what factors were involved in decisions on whether to have recommended mammograms. More than half the women went for routine screening. But the younger women in the group were more likely to do so.
Black wanted to see if a concept other studies have described was at play - the idea that how we see ourselves, healthwise, in the future and whether we think we have any influence over that future, will motivate us to make healthy lifestyle choices or practise preventative medicine.
Her findings suggest that indeed, women did have a different approach to preventative health care if they believed they could influence their health.
"Whether that generalized fear about health in the future mobilizes someone to think preventatively is a possibility. But it's only if they think they can do something about those things - which I thought was quite interesting," she said.
"I hadn't expected to find that."
Even women who didn't fear getting ill but felt a mammogram would benefit their health were more likely to be screened than those women who didn't feel they would be able to battle disease if they became ill.
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