Knowledge about health effects of sun exposure, and attitude and intention to screen for skin cancer: Findings from the Pennsylvania Cancer Education Network

Objective: Skin cancer is reaching epidemic status, with 2 to 3 million non-melanoma skin cancers and 132,000 malignant melanomas occurring globally each year. However, skin cancer is preventable by limiting exposure to UV radiation and early screening.

Methods: This analysis is based on data collected from 690 adults participating in statewide skin cancer education sessions. Using a cross-sectional pretest-posttest design, we evaluated participants' knowledge (K), attitudes about skin cancer (A), and intention to screen (I) before and after a 45 minute health education session that builds trust, discusses health information, and encourages action.

Results: The education sessions had a significant proximal impact on subjects' KAI status. Average knowledge scores on limiting exposure to UV radiation significantly increased (4.58 vs. 4.70, p<0.01), average attitude scores indicating that screening is embarrassing or painful significantly decreased (2.79 vs. 2.60, p<0.001) and intention to screen score significantly increased (3.84 vs. 4.01, p<0.001) between the pretest and posttest. The favorable increases in knowledge and intend to screen scores, and decrease in attitude scores were observed across White, Black and Hispanic groups. Participants with higher education levels had higher favorable scores after controlling for age, gender and race/ethnicity in multiple regression models, (p<0.001).

Conclusion: The proximal results of the PCEN skin cancer education program suggest that action-oriented participatory health education may be a sucessful model for addressing the growing global skin cancer epidemic.