Learning Objective #1: Understand psychosocial predictors of Korean rural women taking mammography screening

Learning Objective #2: Provide education, and counseling as differentiated interventions to target women based on psychological factors

---

Objectives: Mammography screening at appropriate intervals can reduce breast cancer mortality. In order to achieve the greatest reduction in breast cancer mortality, screening programs need to achieve maximum participation within the target population. The purpose of this study was performed to define the distribution in the stage of mammography adoption, the difference in health belief variables by the stage of mammography adoption and the psychosocial predictors of the stage of mammography adoption. Design: A descriptive study using a survey method. Sample and setting: Convenience sampling was used to select 432 subjects from 9 rural areas in W city. The inclusion criteria were age over 40 and not having had breast cancer, because mammography recommendation begins at age 40 in Korea. Instruments: Perceived susceptibility and seriousness were measured using CHBMS-K. Perceived benefits and barriers were measured as developed by Rakowski et al. Stage of mammography adoption was measured on a single item used by Rakowski et al. Methods: Data was collected using a survey method. Susceptibility, seriousness, benefits, and barriers according to stage of mammography were tested by one-way ANOVA. We conducted a regression analysis with the stage of mammography as predictors. Finding: The most frequent stage of mammography was the 'contemplation' phase. There were significant differences by the stage emerged for perceived seriousness, susceptibility, benefits and barriers. Predictors of the stage of mammography adoption included 'ever had a recommendation', 'perceived benefits', 'perceived barriers' and 'perceived susceptibility'. 'Ever had a recommendation' demonstrated the greatest association to undergoing mammography. Conclusions and implications: Considering the influencing factors among the stages of mammography adoption identified in this study, the provision of education, information, and counseling as differentiated interventions to target women will achieve the maximum rate of participation for prevention behavior in the target population of women over 40.