Evaluation of the risk factors and screening behaviors of colorectal, prostate, breast, cervical cancers of family physicians working in the central districts of İzmir

Aim: Cancer is an increasing health problem worldwide and causes a significant socioeconomic burden in societies and financial and moral losses for individuals. Raising awareness in the society, protection from risk factors and cancer screening are the leading effective methods in combating cancer. As family physicians play the main role in these fundamental issues, they must first protect their health and guide the society as an example. The aim of this study is to determine family physicians' risk factors for colorectal, prostate, breast and cervical cancers and their own screening behavior. Method: This cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in İzmir, in February 2019. 180 females and 217 males, in total 397 family physicians working in central districts of İzmir was recruited as two separate strata. The distribution of physicians was proportional to the number of physicians in the districts and randomly selected physicians from family health centers has participated according to the principle of voluntarism. A questionnaire was used includes physicians' sosyodemographic information, colorectal, prostate, breast, cervix cancers risk factories and screen behaviours as data collection tool. In the analysis and evaluation of research data IBM SPSS (The Statistical Package for Social Sciences) 24.0 was utilised; descriptive analyzes for all data, mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage distributions, chi-square test for comparison of categorical independent variables and dependent variables were conducted. p value <0,05 was accepted statistically significant. Findings: In this study group mean age was 49,44±6,8, female %45,3, male %54,7, married %78,1 single %21,9. Alcohol and cigarette usage was %63,7, %26,2, respectively. About to half of the study group has a chronic disease and uses medication. the participants indicated that they have cancer and also their family have cancer %3, %39,8, respectively. Its seen that %47,8 of phsycians had fecal occult blood and %23,9 had colonoscopy. Also male phsycians had %85,8 PSA test, %12,7 DRE and female phsycians had %90 BSE, %63,9 CBE, %73,5 mammography and %74,4 pap smear-HPV test. Mostly, phsycians reasons to take cancer screening tests were regular health control and having complaint whilst reasons to not take test were negligence, having no complaints and feeling under no risk. Results: In our study, it was observed that family physicians had cancer screening tests mostly due to regular health screening. However, "negligence" was frequently expressed as the reason for not screening. In the working life, it may be beneficial to prevent the negligence by researching opportunities (arrangements to allow appointment and time) and motivation sources (incentives and rewards) and to put them on the agenda by all parties. Key words: Family physicians, cancer screening, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, cervix cancer