Knowledge, awareness and attitudes of individuals aged 30-70 towards cancer screening

Cancer screening tests are the cheapest and easiest methods that play a role in the early diagnosis of a devastating global burden such as cancer and prevent major morbidity and mortality. According to the national cancer screening program, three main types of cancer are screened in our country. However, in our society, not enough importance is given to cancer screening. The aim of this study is to determine the knowledge about, attitudes towards, and awareness of, individuals between the ages of 30-70 about cancer screening tests and to examine the factors that may be related to their knowledge levels and attitudes towards cancer screenings. The study was planned as a descriptive survey study. After obtaining ethics committee approval, men and women between the ages of 30-70 were reached out via social media between 22.04.2022 and 31.05.2022, and a three-stage questionnaire was filled out by participants. The online questionnaire was prepared via Google Forms and the informed consent of the participants was obtained at the beginning of the questionnaire. The questionnaire, which consists of 57 questions and three parts, was prepared by scanning the literature. It included sociodemographic information in the first part, Knowledge and Awareness Questionnaire for Cancer Screening Tests in the second part and Attitude Scale Towards Cancer Screening in the third part. Permission was obtained from the developer of the Attitude Scale Towards Cancer Screening prior to use. For the study, a total of 544 individuals were reached out. 17 individuals were excluded from the sample because they did not meet the age criteria and the questionnaire was filled out by 527 participants in total. The results of the study were analyzed by using the IBM SPSS Statistics V23 software. The significance level was accepted as p<0.05. The mean age of the participants in the study was 42.81±9.26 (max: 70.0 min: 30.0) years. 67.4% of the participants were women, 76.1% were married, and 76.3% were university graduates or higher. It was observed that 35.3% of the participants had a chronic disease and the most common diagnosis was hypertension. It was noted that 3% of the participants in the study had cancer diagnosis and 37.5% of those diagnosed with cancer had breast cancer. While 73.4% of the participants were aware of the existence of national cancer screening tests, 27.5% of all participants had at least one cancer screening despite being in the screening group. The most common screening performed by the participants was cervical cancer screening, and they chose the family physician as the most common source of information about screening. The mean score of the participants from the screening scale was 92.01±16.23 (min:54, max:120), and the mean score from the information questionnaire was 2.7 (min:0, max:6). A significant difference was found between the attitude towards screening tests and the following factors: age, number of children, BMI, marital status, occupation, level of education and income, alcohol habit, family history of colon cancer, knowing that cancer screening is performed, having information about screening tests, choosing branch physicians as a source of information, having had cancer screening before, knowing how and from what age the screenings were performed. There was a significant difference between the knowledge levels of cancer screening tests and the following factors: gender, age, number of children, BMI, occupation, level of education and income, tobacco use, medical insurance, cancer diagnosis in the family, breast and colon cancer history in the family, knowing that cancer screening is performed, having information about screening tests, having had cancer screening before, having information about Cancer Early Detection, Screening and Education Center (KETEM), choosing branch physicians as a source of information. In the light of the data obtained in the study, it was found that cancer screenings are not at sufficient levels for the society and that they are far from target screening coverage. In addition, although the attitudes of individuals towards cancer screenings seem to be positive, their knowledge about screening is insufficient. In this regard, all physicians, especially family physicians, have great responsibilities. Keywords: Cancer screening, primary care, early diagnosis of cancer