Men's estimates of prostate cancer risk and self‐reported rates of screening

Abstract

Objective To determine rates of prostate cancer screening and predictors of men's participation in this screening in the light of national recommendations against prostate cancer screening. Design Community‐based study (computer‐assisted telephone survey). Setting Central Sydney Area Health Service. Participants Randomly selected men aged 40‐80 years. Results 340 men participated (65% response rate). While the true lifetime (0‐74 years) risk of developing or dying from prostate cancer is reported to be one in 18 (6%) and one in 65 (1.5%), respectively, 37% of respondents thought that at least one in five men (20%) would develop prostate cancer before the age of 75 years and 11% that one in five (20%) would die from it. Twenty‐two per cent of men aged 50 years or over had been screened for prostate cancer within the previous 12 months. Ever worrying about prostate cancer and bothersome urinary symptoms independently predicted the probability of screening within the previous year. Sociodemographic characteristics such as age, occupation and country of birth were not associated with screening. Conclusions Public health initiatives to discourage prostate cancer screening should focus particularly on men with bothersome urinary symptoms and those who worry about prostate cancer. Accurate information about the low risks of dying from prostate cancer needs to be communicated, and the speculative nature of current evidence in support of screening as a means of reducing this risk should be emphasised.

Knowledge, attitudes and experience associated with testing for prostate cancer: a comparison between male doctors and men in the community

“…Although there is no officially endorsed prostate cancer‐testing programme in Australia, testing was prevalent in the community. Approximately 55% of men aged 50−70 years in Victoria have had at least one test for prostate cancer, which is consistent with other studies 5,11 , 12 …”

Waiting is the hardest part: a model of uncertainty navigation in the context of health news

“…A mammogram would not reduce the chances that the women had cancer; however, it could mitigate objective consequences of cancer through early diagnosis. Similarly, other research finds that both perceptions of vulnerability and worry about prostate cancer predicted adherence to recommended prostate screening tests (Ward, Hughes, Hirst, & Winchester, 1997;Wolf, Philbrick, & Schorling, 1997). Again, adherence to recommended screening tests would not reduce the chances of developing prostate cancer, but early diagnosis that could result from the test would mitigate some of the objective consequences of a cancer diagnosis by improving the prognosis, minimising the course of treatment, etc.…”

A community-based randomised controlled trial of three different educational resources for men about prostate cancer screening

“…The median number of days between the completion of the pre-and the post-test interviews was 21 days (IQR [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31] and was similar between the three groups (x 2 ð2Þ ¼ 1:23) (P = 0.54). The median duration of the post-test interviews was 23.5 minutes (IQR 20.…”

“…A previous survey of male residents of Sydney in which 2000 households had been contacted, yielded a completed interview for 143 males (7.2%) aged 50-69 [27]. Hence, it was estimated that 7000 households would need to be contacted in order to yield 500 completed pre-test interviews.…”