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Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study
AIMS: To engage with high risk groups to identify knowledge and awareness of oral cancer signs and symptoms and the factors likely to contribute to improved screening uptake. METHODS: Focus group discussions were undertaken with 18 males; 40+ years of age; smokers and/or drinkers (15+ cigarettes per...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480360/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23115644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047410 |
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author | Zohoori, Fatemeh Vida Shah, Kamini Mason, Julie Shucksmith, Janet |
author_facet | Zohoori, Fatemeh Vida Shah, Kamini Mason, Julie Shucksmith, Janet |
author_sort | Zohoori, Fatemeh Vida |
collection | PubMed |
description | AIMS: To engage with high risk groups to identify knowledge and awareness of oral cancer signs and symptoms and the factors likely to contribute to improved screening uptake. METHODS: Focus group discussions were undertaken with 18 males; 40+ years of age; smokers and/or drinkers (15+ cigarettes per day and/or 15+ units of alcohol per week), irregular dental attenders living in economically deprived areas of Teesside. RESULTS: There was a striking reported lack of knowledge and awareness of oral cancer and its signs and symptoms among the participants. When oral/mouth cancer leaflets produced by Cancer Research UK were presented to the participants, they claimed that they would seek help on noticing such a condition. There was a preference to seek help from their general practitioner rather than their dentist due to perceptions that a dentist is ‘inaccessible’ on a physical and psychological level, costly, a ‘tooth specialist’ not a ‘mouth specialist’, and also not able to prescribe medication and make referrals to specialists. Interestingly, none of the 18 participants who were offered a free oral cancer examination at a dental practice took up this offer. CONCLUSIONS: The uptake of oral cancer screening may be improved by increasing knowledge of the existence and signs and symptoms of oral cancer. Other factors that may increase uptake are increased awareness of the role of dentists in diagnosing oral cancer, promotion of oral cancer screening by health professionals during routine health checks, and the use of a “health” screening setting as opposed to a “dental” setting for such checks. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3480360 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-34803602012-10-31 Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study Zohoori, Fatemeh Vida Shah, Kamini Mason, Julie Shucksmith, Janet PLoS One Research Article AIMS: To engage with high risk groups to identify knowledge and awareness of oral cancer signs and symptoms and the factors likely to contribute to improved screening uptake. METHODS: Focus group discussions were undertaken with 18 males; 40+ years of age; smokers and/or drinkers (15+ cigarettes per day and/or 15+ units of alcohol per week), irregular dental attenders living in economically deprived areas of Teesside. RESULTS: There was a striking reported lack of knowledge and awareness of oral cancer and its signs and symptoms among the participants. When oral/mouth cancer leaflets produced by Cancer Research UK were presented to the participants, they claimed that they would seek help on noticing such a condition. There was a preference to seek help from their general practitioner rather than their dentist due to perceptions that a dentist is ‘inaccessible’ on a physical and psychological level, costly, a ‘tooth specialist’ not a ‘mouth specialist’, and also not able to prescribe medication and make referrals to specialists. Interestingly, none of the 18 participants who were offered a free oral cancer examination at a dental practice took up this offer. CONCLUSIONS: The uptake of oral cancer screening may be improved by increasing knowledge of the existence and signs and symptoms of oral cancer. Other factors that may increase uptake are increased awareness of the role of dentists in diagnosing oral cancer, promotion of oral cancer screening by health professionals during routine health checks, and the use of a “health” screening setting as opposed to a “dental” setting for such checks. Public Library of Science 2012-10-24 /pmc/articles/PMC3480360/ /pubmed/23115644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047410 Text en © 2012 Zohoori et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Zohoori, Fatemeh Vida Shah, Kamini Mason, Julie Shucksmith, Janet Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study |
title | Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study |
title_full | Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study |
title_fullStr | Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study |
title_short | Identifying Factors to Improve Oral Cancer Screening Uptake: A Qualitative Study |
title_sort | identifying factors to improve oral cancer screening uptake: a qualitative study |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480360/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23115644 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047410 |
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