Physicians' attitudes toward breast self-examination: a pilot study.

Recent case control studies suggest that breast self-examination (BSE) is efficacious in the early clinical diagnosis of breast cancer. Population studies also indicate that adoption of this behavior depends largely on physicians. This pilot study was designed to determine whether physicians' attitudes on this subject could be obtained through a mail questionnaire. The results show that a self-administered mail questionnaire can be used successfully in physician studies. Although questionnaire length does affect response rates (78% one page, 69% four page, and 57% eight page), it does not affect either respondent characteristics or question response.