[Determinants of interest in primary preventive screening].

BACKGROUND

Primary prevention care requires active approach not only from the health professionals but also from all individuals of the target population. People themselves have to be interested for their own health, for the preventive examinations, for their life-style. However, the health supporting activities based on the voluntary interest are most frequently exploited by people who actually do not need it, and people of the high risks stay apart. The aim of the study was to identify major differences among those who are interested in the preventive examinations and who are not, and answer the question whether those who declare their interest are the needful and primarily aimed population.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Within the preventive project, 4353 parents of school-aged children in Brno were examined using a special questionnaire. Beside interest in examination, following criteria were questioned and analysed: age, education level, economical standard, subjective evaluation of health, occurrence of concrete health problems, family health history, adequacy of the body weight (according reported height and weight), dietary habits, alcohol consumation, smoking habits, recreation-sport activities, and selected subjective perceptions. Differences based on concern about examination were evaluated by the comparison of studied parameters in groups formed according the "interest" and also using the logistic regression analysis. We found that the dominating determinant of concern about the preventive examination was the interest of the family partner (harmony of interests). In the group of persons who declared their "interest", higher education level, worse subjective evaluation of health, higher occurrence of concrete health problems, and higher incidence of selected diseases in the family were more frequently reported. Obversely, the number of smokers was lower in this group. Incidence of overweight persons differed according to their sex--meanwhile more overweight women were among the "interested group", more overweight men were among the "not interested". Women in the "interested" group consumed alcohol less frequently, men in this group were often more active in sports. Dietary habits as well as economical standard did not differ among the two groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Though the differences among groups with different concern about examination were statistically different, they were not very pronounced. It cannot be confirmed that the preventive examination is exploited preferably by people without major risk factors, those socio-demographically or otherwise specific, or generally those to whom the proposal of examination was not aimed.