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Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia

BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major health problem. It is the third most diagnosed common tumour and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Early screening has been shown to decrease the incidence of CRC cancer and decrease mortality. In Saudi Arabia (SA), there is n...

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Autores principales: Althobaiti, Asma, Jradi, Hoda
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6854663/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31727029
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1857-7
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author Althobaiti, Asma
Jradi, Hoda
author_facet Althobaiti, Asma
Jradi, Hoda
author_sort Althobaiti, Asma
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major health problem. It is the third most diagnosed common tumour and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Early screening has been shown to decrease the incidence of CRC cancer and decrease mortality. In Saudi Arabia (SA), there is no national policy for CRC screening despite the growing incidence of the disease. This study investigated the knowledge of risk factors for CRC, recommendations for screening, and attitudes and barriers towards screening among medical students. METHODS: Data was collected using a self-administered valid and reliable questionnaire consisting of demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and barriers measurements completed by 581 medical students from two Saudi schools. Frequencies and mean scores of knowledge and attitude were determined. The likelihood of students having adequate knowledge of CRC risk factors and screening modalities was estimated using multivariate logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Knowledge of the risk factors for CRC and screening modalities, and attitude towards screening were poor in 52.47 and 57.83% of the surveyed medical students; respectively. Higher level of medical education (OR = 3.23; 95% CI: 2.01–5.18) and a positive attitude towards CRC screening (OR = 2.74; 95% CI: 1.86–4.03) were independent predictors of higher knowledge levels. Lack of awareness about CRC and screening modalities among patients, and shortage of specialized healthcare providers were barriers independently associated with low knowledge levels. CONCLUSIONS: Saudi medical students have limited knowledge of CRC risk factors of and a poor attitude towards CRC screening. These results contribute to our understanding of missed teaching opportunities in Saudi medical schools and suggest intervening at the medical school, clinical practice, and population levels to increase CRC screening practices.
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spelling pubmed-68546632019-11-21 Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia Althobaiti, Asma Jradi, Hoda BMC Med Educ Research Article BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major health problem. It is the third most diagnosed common tumour and the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Early screening has been shown to decrease the incidence of CRC cancer and decrease mortality. In Saudi Arabia (SA), there is no national policy for CRC screening despite the growing incidence of the disease. This study investigated the knowledge of risk factors for CRC, recommendations for screening, and attitudes and barriers towards screening among medical students. METHODS: Data was collected using a self-administered valid and reliable questionnaire consisting of demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and barriers measurements completed by 581 medical students from two Saudi schools. Frequencies and mean scores of knowledge and attitude were determined. The likelihood of students having adequate knowledge of CRC risk factors and screening modalities was estimated using multivariate logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: Knowledge of the risk factors for CRC and screening modalities, and attitude towards screening were poor in 52.47 and 57.83% of the surveyed medical students; respectively. Higher level of medical education (OR = 3.23; 95% CI: 2.01–5.18) and a positive attitude towards CRC screening (OR = 2.74; 95% CI: 1.86–4.03) were independent predictors of higher knowledge levels. Lack of awareness about CRC and screening modalities among patients, and shortage of specialized healthcare providers were barriers independently associated with low knowledge levels. CONCLUSIONS: Saudi medical students have limited knowledge of CRC risk factors of and a poor attitude towards CRC screening. These results contribute to our understanding of missed teaching opportunities in Saudi medical schools and suggest intervening at the medical school, clinical practice, and population levels to increase CRC screening practices. BioMed Central 2019-11-14 /pmc/articles/PMC6854663/ /pubmed/31727029 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1857-7 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Althobaiti, Asma
Jradi, Hoda
Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia
title Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia
title_full Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia
title_fullStr Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia
title_full_unstemmed Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia
title_short Knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in Saudi Arabia
title_sort knowledge, attitude, and perceived barriers regarding colorectal cancer screening practices and risk factors among medical students in saudi arabia
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6854663/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31727029
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1857-7
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