Introduction: cancer-related diseases are the leading causes of mortality rates, where breast cancer is the one with the highest incidence among women.
Objective: to evaluate the effectiveness of an educational intervention on the risk factors of breast cancer in women between 20 and 40 years old from November 2019 to January 2020.
Method: a quasi-experimental study having a before and after design was carried out without a control group in women between 20 and 40 years old at No- 13 Family Doctor’s Office belonging to Ignacio Agramonte y Loynaz University Polyclinic . The target group comprised 150 women who were allocated, selecting a sample of 24 through intentional sampling and inclusion and exclusion criteria. This study was developed in three stages: diagnosis, intervention and evaluation. Absolute and relative percentage frequency and chi-squared test were used to determine the independence between variables (p <0.05) and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney test for ordinal variables.
Results: after the educational intervention, a significant increase (p <0,05 U = 23) was observed in the level of adequate knowledge about risk factors of breast cancer (44,17 % vs. 100 %), practice of breast self-examination ( 8,3 % vs. 100 %) and clinical signs of breast cancer (33,3 % vs. 100 %).
Conclusions: the application of the educational intervention had a favorable impact on the level of knowledge of women between the ages 20 and 40 in the community, undertaking a greater perception of risk and providing tools to prevent the disease in this vulnerable population group
