A community-based study on awareness of cancer and anticipated barriers in seeking help

Sharma, Deepak; Goel, Naveen Krishan; Sharma, Munish; Walia, Dinesh Kumar; Puri, Sidharth

doi:10.4103/ijcfm.ijcfm_34_19

Cited by 7 publications

(16 citation statements)

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“…In concordance with other studies, knowledge of cancer risk factors as well as signs and symptoms improved with age [10,11,[22][23][24][25]. This is not surprising as informal learning through experiences in life and exposure to public education programs increases with age.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Therefore, in low-resource settings, lacking systematic and well-organized screening programs, where early diagnosis is essential to improve survival, a population-based approach should be combined with more tailored individualized education for better results [32,35,43,47]. The effects from such interventions could be pronounced and sustainable, when involving younger age groups, such as adolescents [24], as reflected in this study, by the better knowledge demonstrated by adolescents of some risk factors, included in their health-related school curriculum.…”

Section: Implications For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

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Knowledge Level of Cancer Symptoms and Risk Factors in the Gaza Strip: A Cross-sectional Study

Elshami

Alshorbassi

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background In low-income settings, cancer is often diagnosed in advanced stages due to late presentation. Good public awareness of cancer signs and symptoms has a positive impact on the time patients take before they present to healthcare professionals. Therefore, this study examined public knowledge of cancer signs and symptoms as well as risk factors in Gaza. Methods This was a cross-sectional study. Participants were recruited from adult visitors (≥18 years) to governmental hospitals covering all five governorates of Gaza, and adolescent students (15 to 17 years) from ten high schools in corresponding locations. An Arabic version of the Cancer Awareness Measure (CAM) was completed in a face-to-face interview. It described demographic data and knowledge of: cancer prevalence, age-related risk, signs and symptoms as well as risk factors both in recall and recognition questions. Results Of 3033 participants invited, 2886 completed the CAM (response rate= 95.2%). Adult mean age ± standard deviation (SD) was 33.7±11.7 years and that of adolescents was 16.3±0.8 years. Half of the participants (n=1457, 50.5%) were adolescent (781 females; 53.6%) and 1429 (49.5%) were adult (702 females; 49.1%). About two thirds (n=1885) thought about cancer as unrelated to age. Only 196 participants (6.8%) identified colorectal cancer as the most common cancer among men. Awareness of cancer signs/symptoms was poor to fair, where ‘lump’ was most commonly recognized (n= 2227, 77.2%) and ‘change of bowel habit’ the least (n=670, 23.2%). Only 217 participants (7.5%) had a good level of recognizing risk factors with ‘smoking’ being the most identified and ‘eating less than five portions of fruits and vegetables a day’ the least. There was a higher likelihood for adults to identify most cancer signs/symptoms and risk factors than adolescents, except for recalling ‘unexplained pain’, ‘persistent cough/hoarseness’, ‘non-healing ulcer’, ‘smoking’, and ‘eating less than five portions of fruits and vegetables a day’. Conclusion Public awareness of cancer signs/symptoms and risk factors needs to improve to facilitate early presentation and diagnosis in Gaza. Combining the delivery of public campaigns with tailored education to population groups, including the youth, may increase their knowledge and maintain its impact.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Implications For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Knowledge Level of Cancer Symptoms and Risk Factors in the Gaza Strip: A Cross-sectional Study

Elshami

Alshorbassi

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…It might also be linked to the linguistic link of 'tumour', which represents a mass, to cancer. However, less than 53% of both adults and adolescents recognized other cancer symptoms, which is similar to participants in China, India, the United Kingdom (UK) and Oman [17,24,28,29]. Recognition of cancer symptoms was found to be similar in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the UK, when investigated by the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership [27].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…The school curriculum content might be reflected in the fact that more adolescents than adults knew that 'smoking' and 'eating less than five portions of fruit and vegetables a day' were risk factors for cancer, both of which are facts actually 'taught' at school. In most studies 'smoking' was the most commonly recognized risk factor [18,23,24,29,[39][40][41]. Smoking enjoyed worldwide high publicity as a cancer risk factor and it is interesting that adolescents were better at recognizing this risk factor than adults.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Knowledge level of cancer symptoms and risk factors in the Gaza Strip: a cross-sectional study

Elshami

Alshorbassi

et al. 2020

BMC Public Health

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Background: In low-income settings, cancer is often diagnosed in advanced stages due to late presentation. Good public awareness of cancer signs and symptoms has a positive impact on the time patients take before they present to healthcare professionals. Therefore, this study examined public knowledge of cancer signs and symptoms as well as risk factors in Gaza. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. Participants were recruited from adult visitors (≥18 years) to governmental hospitals covering all five governorates of Gaza, and adolescent students (15 to 17 years) from 10 high schools in corresponding locations. An Arabic version of the Cancer Awareness Measure (CAM) was completed in a face-to-face interview. It described demographic data and knowledge of: cancer prevalence, age-related risk, signs and symptoms as well as risk factors both in recall and recognition questions. Results: Of 3033 participants invited, 2886 completed the CAM (response rate = 95.2%). Adult mean age ± standard deviation was 33.7 ± 11.7 years and that of adolescents was 16.3 ± 0.8 years. Half of the participants (n = 1457, 50.5%) were adolescent (781 females; 53.6%) and 1429 (49.5%) were adult (702 females; 49.1%). About two thirds (n = 1885) thought about cancer as unrelated to age. Only 196 participants (6.8%) identified colorectal cancer as the most common cancer among men. Awareness of cancer signs/symptoms was poor to fair, where 'lump' was most commonly recognized (n = 2227, 77.2%) and 'change of bowel habit' the least (n = 670, 23.2%). Only 217 participants (7.5%) had a good level of recognizing risk factors with 'smoking' being the most identified and 'eating less than five portions of fruits and vegetables a day' the least. There was a higher likelihood for adults to identify most cancer signs/ symptoms and risk factors than adolescents, except for recalling 'unexplained pain', 'persistent cough/hoarseness', 'nonhealing ulcer', 'smoking', and 'eating less than five portions of fruits and vegetables a day'.

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Knowledge of cancer symptoms and risk factors: A cross-sectional study from a developing country

Al Bashir,

AlBarakat,

Alabedalhalim

et al. 2024

Medicine

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The delayed presentation of cancer patients to healthcare facilities for diagnosis is a pressing issue, as late-stage cancer cases are often more challenging to treat effectively. In low-resource settings, such as those with limited access to healthcare facilities, the impact of inadequate awareness of cancer signs and symptoms can be particularly severe. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate public knowledge of cancer signs and symptoms and risk factors in the context of Jordan. This cross-sectional study was conducted among participants from all settings. Data was obtained from an Arabic version of the cancer awareness measure (CAM), which was answered online. It described demographic data and knowledge of cancer prevalence, age-related risk, signs, symptoms, and risk factors in recall and recognition-type questions. Participants (n = 1998) completed the questionnaire with a Median age of 35 and an interquartile range of 24. About half (n = 1070) thought that cancer is unrelated to age. Most participants identified breast cancer as the most common cancer among women (81%). Awareness of cancer signs/symptoms significantly differed in the level of knowledge in favor of females. The symptom “unexplained weight loss” was most commonly recognized (66.3%) and “persistent difficulty swallowing” the least (42.6%). As for risk factors, “smoking” was the most identified (76.9%) and “eating less than 5 portions of fruits and vegetables a day” was the least (19%), and “doing <30 minutes of moderate physical activity 5 times a week” as a close second least (19.95%). Females identified “smoking,” “passive smoking,” “HPV infection,” and “having a close relative with cancer” as risk factors significantly more than males. Those with good economic status were more aware that smoking is a cancer risk factor by 1.51 times compared to those with poor economic status. To enhance early diagnosis and presentation in Jordan, there is a need for increased public awareness of the signs, symptoms, and risk factors of cancer. One effective strategy to achieve this goal is to conduct targeted public campaigns that cater to different population groups, such as the youth, to improve their understanding and ensure that the message resonates.

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A community-based study on awareness of cancer and anticipated barriers in seeking help

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Knowledge Level of Cancer Symptoms and Risk Factors in the Gaza Strip: A Cross-sectional Study

Knowledge Level of Cancer Symptoms and Risk Factors in the Gaza Strip: A Cross-sectional Study

Knowledge level of cancer symptoms and risk factors in the Gaza Strip: a cross-sectional study

Knowledge of cancer symptoms and risk factors: A cross-sectional study from a developing country

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