Health beliefs, health locus of control, and the frequency of practice of breast self-examination in women.

The relationship of health beliefs, health locus of control, and the frequency of practice of breast self-examination in women was explored through use of a survey. Health beliefs alone and health beliefs combined with internal health locus of control were found to predict the frequency of practice of breast self-examination in a sample of 48 women. The combined variables of health beliefs, internal health locus of control, religion, and occupation explained 80% of the variance in nonpractice and 73.3% of the variance for high practice. Moderate frequency practice was not a significant predictor of breast self-examination. Discriminant function analysis, canonical correlation, and analysis of variance were used in the data analysis.