4 Awareness – defined by Merriam-Webster as “knowledge and understanding that something is happening or exists.” High-risk – used as a medical term, refers to a group that is particularly subject or exposed to danger or has a more increased chance of being affected by either internal or external factors. DeLano et al. (2016), In their article, discussed the lack of an appropriate screening program for women in an inpatient setting was identified by a nurse navigator. That detecting and preventing early is essential in decreasing a woman’s mortality from breast cancer. “The objectives of the project were to develop a simple assessment tool that screened 100% of patients upon admission to the inpatient setting to identify women over the age of 40 years who had not had a mammogram within the past 12 months.” (DeLano et al., 2016). Because of their project, DeLano et al. (2016) found out, “The problem being addressed is that women all too often forgo or avoid their yearly mammograms for personal reasons. The American College of Radiology estimates that 40% of women over the age of 40 years are avoiding their yearly mammogram.” This article provides the vital need for a proper educational approach to encourage women not to forgo their screening. In this article, Guilford et al. (2017), “The purpose of this study was to examine breast cancer knowledge, beliefs, and screening behaviors among college women utilizing the health belief model… Health behavior theories are often used to understand health behaviors and help professionals assist people in making desired changes.” This article provides evidence to develop an appropriate educational approach to support the clinical question. Lofters et al. (2017) discuss adherence to cancer screenings and follow-ups. “We used pre-and post-session questionnaires to assess changes in participant awareness of cancer susceptibility and screening guidelines and changes in screening self-efficacy.”
5 Huhmann (2020) provided a study for the immigrant women’s population about their perceptions towards screening. “Somali women were least likely to understand the purpose of a mammogram, and those who correctly understood breast cancer screening had gained this knowledge since immigrating to the United States. Misconceptions regarding risk factors also led to an incorrect understanding of breast and cervical cancers which may cause Somali women to believe they are less susceptible to cancer because of its cultural classification as a western disease.” This article provides evidence of the need to increase awareness with a goal of inclusivity and understanding for other ethnic groups within the community. Nasiriani et al. (2017), the benefit of this article to the research question is the essential need to consider the need for cancer screening based on family history. And that other alternatives for effective educational approaches to encourage screening via telephone counseling. These research studies are examples of evidence that can support the research question: “Developing an Education-based Approach to Increase Awareness on Breast Cancer Screening.” As for critically appraising the literature, we can identify strengths and weaknesses in the literature to support the research question appropriately. We continue to use critical appraisal tools such as CINAHL, PubMed, Medline, etc., to identify the appropriate literature. Strengths help reduce the burden and allow you to focus on articles relevant to the research question, and that can reliably support or refute its claims with high-quality evidence or identify high-level research pertinent to your practice. Weakness can be overwhelming volumes of results which can vary in quality. For this research question, the strengths from appraising the literature increase the validity and purpose of the study, the clinical applicability, and usefulness. The identified weakness from the supporting evidence was the lack of studies or information about screening for younger women who can be considered high-risk because most studies only target women 40 or older regarding the importance of screening.
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