DATA ON HEALTH BELIEF MODEL AND BEHAVIOURAL PRACTICE OF WOMEN TOWARDS BREAST CANCER SCREENING IN LAGOS, NIGERIA
Description
The burden of breast cancer is high with huge effect on lives, families and communities. The disease has been noted to be a leading cause of death among women globally. The World Health Organisation has estimated that 2.3 million women have been infected globally and 650,000 mortality rate [1]. Though, incidence in the African region was lower than other continents except for Asia, its age-standardized mortality rate has been ranked highest worldwide with Nigeria, having the highest mortality rate [2]. Although, studies on the degree of knowledge and awareness of breast cancer in the late 1980s and early 1990s found that most women are unaware of the condition, particularly its risk factors and treatment options[3], however, recent studies have revealed a rise in breast cancer awareness behavioural practice, particularly among women in more industrialized cultures [4]. The same cannot be accurate for women in developing nations, particularly those in Africa's Sub-Saharan area, where behavioral practices towards breast cancer screening are still poor [5, 6]. Adherence to breast cancer screening options is therefore connected to an individual’s belief. However, for an individual to adopt a particular behavior as postulated by the health belief model, such individual must feel endangered by his/her current behaviours ; must perceive the specific benefits (value-adding outcome) from a change of behavior; and must feel his or her competency to implementing the recommended change [7-9]. HBM, therefore, seeks to find out whether they (women): believe they are at an increased risk of having BC (perceived susceptibility); their belief of how severe the risk is, considering its physical, mental, and social effect (perceived severity); believe in diagnostic and preventive actions (perceived benefits); believe in their conviction to execute behavioural action being advocated (self-efficacy), whether their behavioural decision making process is triggered by stimulus (cues to action). The dataset (table 1-6) is on how Health Belief Model influences Breast Cancer Screening behaviours of residents of Lagos State, Nigeria. The Likert scale is represented as: Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Undecided (U), Disagree (D), and Strongly Disagree (SD).