Prostate Cancer Education in African American Barbershops

Abstract

There have been very few studies to rigorously evaluate the potential of African-American barbers to educate men about prostate cancer (PCa) in the barbershop setting. This research brief presents baseline data from a cross-sectional survey identifying differences in decisional conflict and stage of decision making by screening status from an efficacy trial to educate African-American men about informed decision-making for prostate cancer screening. Those men who had already received the PSA test were more advanced in their stage of decision making and had less decisional conflict about the PSA test than those men who had never received a PSA test. Educational interventions to increase informed decision making with PCa screening must consider previous PSA test history as a mediating variable affecting decision self-efficacy.

Associations of Content and Context of Communication with Prostate-Specific Antigen Testing

“…Some studies have shown that many African American men do not communicate well with their regular healthcare providers [25]. While shared decision making is recommended prior to PSA screening, several studies highlight that African American men may not be making informed decisions about PSA screening due to patients having low health literacy, knowledge about the test, and past history of receiving PSA [6,26,27]. Moreover, healthcare providers may not be offering sufficient up-to-date information or may not be asking patients about their preferences, thereby hindering the shared decision-making process [28].…”