How do women face the threat of breast cancer? Our
findings indicated that women's participation in BSE
training was a purposeful action. Personal safety needs
provided them with the principal motivation, i.e. a sense
of self-security emerged as the central theme of participants'
efforts to practice BSE. Each woman had her own
personal reasons for participating in the BSE training.
However, the common motivation related to how women
assessed their risk of breast cancer, as influenced by individual
and social factors. According to the level of the
women's risk perception, a ladder of motivation was
found in the results. The 4 patterns of motivation were
identified as: taking opportunities, clarifying confusion,
maintaining health, and illness monitoring. The 4-ladder
motivation model and its intertwined dimensions are
shown in Figure 1. The categories are further expanded,
and all names used in the analysis are pseudonyms.
Satisfaction in the sense of self-security
The results indicated that almost all of the women could
not deny the possibility of having breast cancer, but living
in a conservative society like Asia, most women deal with
their worries on their own. Fon Shin (in Chinese), the
description of storing your heart in a safe-keeping place
carries a similar meaning to a sense of self-security in
English. Fon Shin has also become the barrier in women
with possible breast cancer to look for professional help
as their bodies cannot be freely exposed to a stranger's
eye. One woman explained "I wanted to learn BSE so I can
do self-examination without worries" (A28). A second
woman said "I think if I learn the skills I can do it more
often by myself, with my own feelings on them so that my
mind can be released" (C56). In as much as women's existence
is threatened by breast cancer, a self-examination
procedure needs to be mobilized to give a sense of selfsecurity.
The study showed that satisfaction in a sense of
self-security was related to autonomous decision making
and action; as another participant explained, "I want to
understand my body more" (D10). Therefore, in general
women who understand how to self-examine and understand
their own body condition could be important in the
prevention of possible lesions.
PS: In parenthesis, the first letter labeled the level of
ladder: A, opportunity taking; B, confusion clarifying;
C, health maintaining; and D, illness monitoring. The
second letter represented the number of cases. Ex.
(A28) it refers the quotation from the 28 case in the
opportunity taking ladder