This study is aiming at exploring breast cancer related knowledge, attitude and practices toward breast cancer and breast self-examination (BSE) and to evaluate the effects of educational level on them. For this a cross sectional study covering 234 women attending Primary Health Care center in Kufa city, Najaf governorate was carried out during the period of 1st of November 2012 to the 1st of February 2013, data collection was done by using questionnaire forms containing demographic and, questions related to the symptoms and signs of breast cancer, questions about the risk factors, questions related to BSE practice. Results showed that 48.7% of the participant had a low level of education,38.8%, 12.4% had moderate and high levels respectively with no significant statistical association (p=0.322). Although 74.4% of the participants had been heard about BSE only 21.8% of them practiced it regularly. The main causes for non-practicing BSE were afraid to find out a lump and lack of information about it. Only 24.4% knew the correct time of BSE for postmenopausal women while 42.3% knew the correct time for premenopausal women. The main source of information was from television. Results also showed that 74.4% of the participants knew that breast cancer can be prevented through early diagnosis by BSE and mammogram. These results indicate that women have poor knowledge of breast cancer and minority practice BSE .although, education must be the major determinant of level of knowledge and health behavior among the community but in this study e was no relation between educational level and the overall knowledge level.
