A Study to Assess the Knowledge regarding Early Detection of Oral Cancer among Professional Drivers attending Regional Transport Office Thiruvalla

Abstract

In most people’s minds there is no scarier diagnosis than that of cancer. Cancer is often thought as and untreatable, unbearably painful disease with no cure. Cancer is undoubtedly a serious and potentially life-threatening illness. It is the leading cause of death in Indians under the age of 85. One of the recent concerns playing the field of cancer study or oncology are the increasing number of men who are being diagnosed with cancer. We can reduce the rate of deaths regarding this with early detection techniques. This study is aimed to find out the level of knowledge regarding early detection of oral cancer among professional drivers using a structured questionnaire, to find the association between the pretest knowledge scores and selected baseline variables. Research approach adopted for the study was quantitative approach and research design was pre experimental (one group pretest). The study was conducted among professional drivers attending regional transport office Thiruvalla. The sample of the study was selected by convenient sampling technique and sample size was 30. The pilot study was conducted with 8 samples following to which the data collection procedure was carried out. The main study was conducted among professional drivers attending Regional Transport Office Thiruvalla. Data analysis was done by using chi-square test and the result shows that 15 (50.0%) samples have poor knowledge, 14 (46.7%) samples have average knowledge and 1(3.3%) samples have good knowledge. It was also found that there is a moderate significant association with education level and knowledge score (p=0.07.