A community-based study on awareness of cancer and anticipated barriers in seeking help
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Date
2019-06
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wolters Kluwer - Medknow Publications
Abstract
Cancer is a leading public health problem worldwide. Contributing factors include lack of awareness regarding cancer and improper help seeking behavior. Objective: To assess the awareness regarding early warning signs of cancer, its risk factors and anticipated barriers in seeking help. Methodology: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 470 study participants. Trained workers administered a standardized tool to respondents after obtaining their informed consent. Epi Info software for windows version 7.2 was used for the analysis. Results: Overall, merely 7.7% (36/470) of the study respondents were aware of all the nine warning signs of cancer. The most commonly known early warning sign of cancer was “unexplained swelling” (58.3%). Further, although majority knew that cigarette smoking is a risk factor for cancer (90.4%), very few were aware about the role of inadequate physical activity (9.3%) and diet devoid of adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables (11.9%). There were few anticipated barriers in seeking help such as embarrassment (13.2%) and difficult to interact with a doctor (7.9%). Conclusion: There was inadequate awareness about cancer but a favorable help-seeking behavior. It is, therefore, recommended that health-care professionals should scale up efforts for disseminating information regarding cancer among the people.
Description
Keywords
Cancer, early warning sign, risk factors
Citation
Sharma Deepak, Goel Naveen Krishan, Sharma Munish Kumar, Walia Dinesh Kumar, Puri Sonia. A community-based study on awareness of cancer and anticipated barriers in seeking help . Indian Journal of Community and Family Medicine. 2019 Jun; 5(1): 61-65