Rural male health workers in Western Jamaica: Knowledge, attitudes and practices toward prostate cancer screening

BACKGROUND: Statistics have shown that since 1988, a significant percentage of males are unwilling to seek medical care. The question is if they had the knowledge, worked in the health system and were educated, would this be any different? AIM: The current study aims to fill this void in the literature by examining the perception of rural male health workers (from the Western Region) about prostate examination, and why they are reluctant to inquire about the probability of having, or the likelihood of not having prostate cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study utilized primary cross-sectional data that was collected during February and March 2008 from 170 males (ages 29 years and older), health-care workers who were employed in particular rural health institutions in Jamaica (i.e. Western Regional Health Authority). SPSS was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: When the respondents were asked “Have you ever heard about the screening procedure for prostate?” 71.2% indicated yes, but only 27.1% had got their prostate checked by a health practitioner. When respondents were asked to state what influenced their choice of not doing a digital rectal examination, 20.6% indicated comfort level; 9.4% stated the gender of the health practitioner, 5.3% mentioned fear and others did not respond. Of those who had the examination 2 years ago, 96.5% did not state the choice of method. CONCLUSION: The current study is limited in terms of its generalizability to rural males or rural males in Western Jamaica, but it does provide an insight into the difficulty of men in breaking away from culture.