Cancer awareness in Australian adolescents - BMC Public Health

  • 📰 BioMedCentral
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 61 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 28%
  • Publisher: 71%

Education Education Headlines News

A study published in BMCPublicHealth finds that Australian adolescents show poor awareness of cancer risk factors and cancer warning signs and emphasizes the need for interventions to increase awareness of cancer risks and signs.

shows rates of recognition and recall of the nine most common cancer warning signs. As was the case with cancer risk factors, adolescents’ recall of cancer warning signs was low, compared to their recognition of these signs . The mean number of cancer warning signs recognised was 5.56 . The most recognized and recalled warning signs of cancer were “an unexplained lump or swelling” , followed by “change in appearance of a mole” , and “persistent unexplained pain” .

More than one-third of the adolescents who answered the question did not recall any of the nine most common warning signs; their answers did not align with any of the most common warning signs or stated that they did not know . Other responses to the recall question about warning signs included hair loss , coughing blood , fatigue , generally unwell , spots on skin , shortness of breath , swelling , sickness and skin discolouration .

Bivariate analyses revealed that females recognized significantly more warning signs than males = 3.11, p = .002). Students who knew someone with cancer recognized significantly more cancer warning signs than those who did not know someone with cancer = 5.57, p = .001). There was a significant relationship between grade level and recognition of warning signs, with higher recognition in senior grades = 2.24, p = .02).

Consistent findings were obtained when all four demographic variables were included as independent variables in a multivariate regression analysis to predict recognition of cancer warning signs. The overall regression was statistically significant = 12.20, p = < 0.001) but only explained 6% of the variance in the dependent variable .

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 22. in EDUCATİON

Education Education Latest News, Education Education Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

School-based interventions offer opportunity to promote cardiovascular health in adolescentsSchool-based interventions offer opportunity to promote cardiovascular health in adolescents JAMACardio school intervention childrenshealth cardiovascularhealth teenagers adolescents
Source: NewsMedical - 🏆 19. / 71 Read more »