Sheshachalam A, Chakravarthy A R
Independent Researcher, Bangalore, India.
Indian J Cancer. 2015 Jan-Mar;52(1):153-5. doi: 10.4103/0019-509X.175574.
To assess the cancer awareness in respondents, their knowledge about the nature of cancer as a disease, its diagnosis and treatment, warning signs, environmental risk factors and conceptions of how risk factors work, as well as willingness to participate in screening programs if available.
Cancer awareness is an increasingly important issue in light of increasing incidence and associated healthcare costs, as well as the presence of risk management strategies. In this study, 453 people, drawn from several educational institutes/workplaces, were surveyed with respect to cancer awareness. The test sample included pre university students, undergraduates, and postgraduate students/workers. We checked for variations in cancer awareness across multiple educational levels to determine whether there was variation in levels of cancer awareness across educational classes.
We found that confidence in perception of cancer awareness, and awareness itself, was not very high, and only postgraduates had a nuanced appreciation of some of the complexities of cancer epidemiology, and even then only moderately.
The conclusions of the study point towards the need for optimal policymaking in the development of cancer awareness in the population.
评估受访者对癌症的认知，包括他们对癌症作为一种疾病的本质、诊断和治疗、警示信号、环境风险因素以及风险因素作用方式的了解，以及参与现有筛查项目的意愿。
鉴于癌症发病率上升、相关医疗成本增加以及风险管理策略的存在，癌症认知是一个日益重要的问题。在本研究中，对从多个教育机构/工作场所抽取的453人进行了癌症认知调查。测试样本包括大学预科学生、本科生以及研究生/工作人员。我们检查了多个教育水平的癌症认知差异，以确定不同教育阶层的癌症认知水平是否存在差异。
我们发现，对癌症认知的信心以及认知本身并不高，只有研究生对癌症流行病学的一些复杂性有细微的认识，即便如此也只是适度了解。
该研究的结论表明，在提高公众癌症认知方面需要制定优化的政策。
