Pain experienced by women attending breast cancer screening

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the pain experience of women duri ng mammography for breast cancer screening. Possible associations with pers onal and medical history, sociodemographics and/or situational factors were studied. It was also investigated whether this pain influenced the intenti on to return for future breast cancer screening. In the Netherlands, women between 50-75 years are invited for screening every two years. A total of 1 200 participants were asked to fill up a questionnaire. The response rate w as 79.5% (n = 954), and 945 questionnaires contained adequate information f or analyses. A total of 689 women (72.9%) described mammography as mild to severely painful. In this group, compared to the group that reported no pai n, the following factors occurred significantly more often: sensitive breas ts (P = 0.001), family history of breast diseases (P = 0.017), expected pai n based on former mammography (P = 0.001), high education (P = 0.008), anxi ety (P = 0.001), breast sensitivity in last three days (P = 0.001), insuffi cient attention of technologist (P = 0.001). Other factors like age, hormon al status, breast size and hormone use were not associated with the pain ex perienced. Thirty-two women (3.3%) indicated that they would not attend fur ther screening, 25 (2.6%) reported that the pain might deter them, six wome n (0.6%) had other reasons, one woman (0.1%) was sure not to come because o f severe pain. In conclusion, a large majority of women attending breast ca ncer screening describes mammography as painful (72.9%). Factors associated with pain were described. Relatively few women (2.7%) indicated that the p ain might deter them from future mammography. Recommendations are given to reduce the pain experienced during screening mammography.