A comparison of the awareness and utilisation of postoperative health services provided to women with breast cancer

Abstract

Nurses at a metropolitan Cancer Care Centre (CCC) noted that women who have had recent breastsurgery for carcinoma had significantly different levels of knowledge and use of support servicesdepending upon public or private hospitalisation. The public hospital participants were more aware ofthe range of available services (mean = 3.6) compared to women from the private sector(mean = 2.6). In addition, the public hospital participants were more likely to access a wider rangeof services post discharge (mean = 2.21) compared to the private hospital women (mean = 0.85).A significant difference was found between younger and older women's use of services.