Emanuel Amber S, Kiviniemi Marc T, Howell Jennifer L, Hay Jennifer L, Waters Erika A, Orom Heather, Shepperd James A
University of Florida, USA.
University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA.
Soc Sci Med. 2015 Dec;147:113-20. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.10.058. Epub 2015 Oct 27.
Perceived risk for health problems such as cancer is a central construct in many models of health decision making and a target for behavior change interventions. However, some portion of the population actively avoids cancer risk information. The prevalence of, explanations for, and consequences of such avoidance are not well understood.
We examined the prevalence and demographic and psychosocial correlates of cancer risk information avoidance preference in a nationally representative sample. We also examined whether avoidance of cancer risk information corresponds with avoidance of cancer screening.
Based on our representative sample, 39% of the population indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed that they would "rather not know [their] chance of getting cancer." This preference was stronger among older participants, female participants, and participants with lower levels of education. Preferring to avoid cancer risk information was stronger among participants who agreed with the beliefs that everything causes cancer, that there's not much one can do to prevent cancer, and that there are too many recommendations to follow. Finally, the preference to avoid cancer risk information was associated with lower levels of screening for colon cancer.
These findings suggest that cancer risk information avoidance is a multi-determined phenomenon that is associated with demographic characteristics and psychosocial individual differences and also relates to engagement in cancer screening.
对癌症等健康问题的感知风险是许多健康决策模型中的核心概念，也是行为改变干预措施的目标。然而，有一部分人群会主动回避癌症风险信息。这种回避行为的发生率、原因及后果尚未得到充分了解。
我们在一个具有全国代表性的样本中，研究了癌症风险信息回避偏好的发生率及其与人口统计学和心理社会因素的相关性。我们还研究了回避癌症风险信息是否与回避癌症筛查相关。
基于我们的代表性样本，39%的人群表示同意或强烈同意他们“宁愿不知道自己患癌的几率”。这种偏好在老年参与者、女性参与者以及教育程度较低的参与者中更为强烈。在认同“一切都致癌”“预防癌症没什么办法”以及“要遵循的建议太多”这些观点的参与者中，更倾向于回避癌症风险信息。最后，回避癌症风险信息的偏好与较低的结肠癌筛查水平相关。
这些发现表明，癌症风险信息回避是一种由多种因素决定的现象，与人口统计学特征和心理社会个体差异有关，也与癌症筛查的参与情况有关。
