TABLE 2.
Predisposing factors related to mammogram screening and breast cancer prevention
| Categories | Themes | Data: quotations | Informant (I)/Group (G) |
| Sociocultural factors | Fear, shame and secrecy about breast care | ‘I feel uncomfortable when a man has to do the exam, I always ask for a woman, I don’t like to be exposed (arms covering her chest). It is really the first time I feel I can openly talk about this. Breast care is so private and I feel so scared of having breast cancer.’ | I.5/G.1 |
| Knowledge and beliefs | BSE as the main strategy for breast cancer detection | ‘Everyday when I take a shower I touch myself [touches her breasts with her two hands] and I know that if I find something I have to go to the doctor for a test. Everybody knows that that is the best way to take care of your breasts. If you get in contact with your body, you know better when something is wrong. If there is something wrong you need a mammogram’ | I.2,G.5 |
| Mammogram useful only if there are breast symptoms or the feeling of something unusual in the breast | ‘I felt something weird, like a pimple, then I decided to get the mammogram and it was there, I never thought that it was cancer, I felt it so small. I found out that it might have been there for five years, a long time, and I didn’t feel anything.’ | I.1/G.7 | |
| Mammogram useful even when there are no symptoms | ‘I don’t think I need the test, I’ve never found anything wrong, thank God.’ | I.6/G.2 | |
| Bumps and hits as risk factors for breast cancer | ‘I still think that it happened when playing with my partner, the doctor says it was not the cause but I think it was, it happened when receiving a hit from my partner. I should have got a mammogram after the bump to find out.’ | I.2/G.6 | |
| Attitudes | Laziness (Flojera) for getting a mammogram | ‘I received the medical order for the test a couple of years ago and I left the paper there, I don’t know, it is all due to “flojera” (laziness), more than fear it is “flojera”’. | I.5/G.6 |
| Fatalism: no point in detecting cancer early | ‘That is why one doesn’t go and get it, I will not go to find that I have something wrong, better to live like this’. | I.3/G2 |