This comparative descriptive study compared mammography behaviors, health beliefs, and fear levels of Turkish women aged 40-69 years, who had or did not have a familial breast cancer history (FBCH). The sample included first-degree female relatives (n = 350) of 220 female patients who had received breast cancer treatment at Akdeniz University Hospital and first-degree female relatives of women who did not have a FBCH (n = 300) who had applied to a Family Health Center (FHC) in Antalya. Data were collected between October 2015 and March 2016. The percentage of women who regularly had a mammography was 38% in women with a FBCH and 15.3% in women without a FBCH. Women with a FBCH had higher susceptibility, seriousness, health motivation, mammography self-efficacy perception, and fear of breast cancer, and lower perception of mammography barriers than women without a FBCH. The frequency of having mammography in women with and without a FBCH increased with increased susceptibility perception and was higher in women with a FBCH than in women without a FBCH. Additionally, being single increased mammography screening behavior in those with FBCH. Trainings on screenings should emphasize risks of breast cancer and mammography barriers of the married ones should be reduced.
Keywords: Familial breast cancer history; fear; health beliefs; mammography.