Colorectal Cancer Screening: What Is the Population's Opinion

Abstract

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the first cause of death by cancer in Portugal and mortality has been increasing in the last 30 years. Materials and Methods: During a raising awareness campaign performed by our Gastroenterology Department, in Setúbal, Portugal, an anonymous written questionnaire was developed and presented in order to evaluate the population's knowledge and attitude regarding CRC screening. Results: The following results were reported: 140 persons; mean age 54.6 years; 61.4% women; 22.1% had a family history of colorectal cancer. The main risk factors mentioned by the respondents were family history of CRC, previous history of intestinal polyps, and intestinal infection. Screening was considered useful by all respondents. About 60% of the respondents had been counselled, at least, on one screening technique, mainly by their general practitioner: colonoscopy in 31, fecal occult blood test in 44, and flexible sigmoidoscopy in 9. Most of the respondents had had the appropriate screening test, according to their age and family history. Fourteen of the respondents had not undergone the recommended screening. Their answers showed that this was due to fear of pain/discovering a disease as well as embarrassment. Conclusion: Although themajority of the respondents were aware of the importance of CRC screening, results show that there are still several misconceptions about risk factors, fear, and reluctance concerning the screening techniques. Awareness actions are useful to clarify possible questions and inform the population in order to increase compliance with screening.

The effect of knowledge and health beliefs about colorectal cancer on screening behaviour

“…However, no statistically significant relationship was found between gender and undergoing a CRC screening test according to the logistic regression analysis conducted (OR = 0.438, 95% CI 0.164–1.169). Some other studies have reported higher rates for female participation than males for CRC screening, similar to our results (Arnold, Rademaker, Liu, & Davis, ; Teixeira et al, ; Yılmaz et al, ), while there are also studies with the opposite finding (So et al, ). We believe our result is partly due to the higher rate of family health centre visits to use healthcare services by women.…”

“…The study data were collected with the ‘Data Collection Form' created by the authors after reviewing the relevant literature (Bocci, Troiano, Messina, Nante, & Civitelli, ; Harewood et al, ; Teixeira et al, ; Wong et al, ) and the ‘Health Belief Model Scale for Protection from Colorectal Cancer (HBMSPCC)'. We used 17 questions related to the socio‐demographic characteristics (such as age, gender, educational level, marital status, perceived income, social security coverage, personal habits, chronic diseases, history of cancer, body mass index [BMI]) and 15 questions related to their CRC risk knowledge and behaviour (such as those related to CRC risk, symptoms and screening status) for a total of 32 questions in the data collection form.…”

“…The incidence is 20.6 and 13.1 per hundred thousand men and women, respectively, in Turkey (Altobelli, D'Aloisio, & Angeletti, ). CRC plays an important role in cancer mortality but can be prevented by promoting healthy behaviour and participation in early screening programmes (Teixeira et al, ). More than 95% of CRC cases can be treated when diagnosed in the early or premalignant polyp stage (Pawa, Arulampalam, Norton, ).…”

Psychosocial and clinical factors of probands impacting intrafamilial disclosure and uptake of genetic testing among families with BRCA1/2 or MMR gene mutations

“…A lack of GTT uptake among males in MMR families as compared with females could be a possible explanation . Furthermore, studies showed that cancer screening may be perceived as a taboo subject . This attitude could complicate the messenger task, leading to avoidance behaviors both in probands and family members.…”

Colorectal Cancer Awareness: The Gastroenterology Resolution for the Future

“…In the current edition of GE -Portuguese Journal of Gastroenterology, Teixeira et al [7], from the Centro Hospitalar de Setúbal in Portugal, try to fill in this gap and report their valuable experience and the data gathered during a local awareness campaign designed and conducted by gastroenterologists and associated health professionals. Their aim was mainly to raise awareness by direct interaction with the public but Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the most frequent and lethal cancer in Portugal [1], even though it is well established that screening leads to a significant reduction in both CRC-specific mortality [2] and incidence [3,4].…”