Pain experienced during mammography has been reported frequently by females who underwent either diagnostic or screening breast mammography. This pain is a significant deterrent for women considering this examination and may prevent their participation in breast screaming. Many studies have tried to use strategies to decrease or even prevent pain during mammography.
The purpose of this study was to detect the pros and cons of describing the technique of mammography examination to women attending the screening mammography programs on preventing pain and consequently decreasing the need to repeat the test, reduce the dose of radiation exposure, and also increase the rate of coming next year for follow up mammography.
Subjects and Methods: 306 females were divided into two equal groups, the 1st group attended a lecture describing the mammography technique the 2nd went to mammography directly.
Results: This study is highly suggestive that the description of the mammography technique for patients before starting the examination plays a vital role in decreasing the intensity of pain related to compression especially pain related to Medio-Lateral Oblique view compression (P= 0.010), also decreasing or even stopping the repetition of mammography and reducing the un-necessary radiation exposure (P= 0.000) and also we found a highly significant relation between attending lecture and showing up next year (P value = 0.000).