Abstract
BackgroundReporting of symptoms which may signal cancer is the first step in the diagnostic pathway of cancer diseases. Cancer alarm symptoms are common in the general population. Public awareness and knowledge of cancer symptoms are sparse, however, and many people do not seek medical help when having possible cancer symptoms. As social inequality is associated with cancer knowledge, cancer awareness, and information-seeking, our hypothesis is that social inequality may also exist in the general population with respect to reporting of cancer alarm symptoms. The aim of this study was to investigate possible associations between socioeconomic and demographic determinants and reporting of common cancer alarm symptoms.MethodsA cross-sectional questionnaire survey was performed based on a stratified sample of the Danish general population. A total of 13 777 randomly selected persons aged 20 years and older participated. Our main outcome measures were weighted prevalence estimates of self-reporting one of the following cancer alarm symptoms during the preceding 12 months: a lump in the breast, coughing for more than 6 weeks, seen blood in urine, or seen blood in stool. Logistic regression models were used to calculate unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals for the associations between each covariate and reporting of cancer alarm symptoms.ResultsA total of 2 098 (15.7%) of the participants reported one or more cancer alarm symptoms within the preceding 12 months.Women, subjects out of the workforce, and subjects with a cancer diagnosis had statistically significantly higher odds of reporting one or more cancer alarm symptoms. Subjects with older age and subjects living with a partner had lower odds of reporting one or more cancer alarm symptoms. When analysing the four alarm symptoms of cancer separately most tendencies persisted.ConclusionsSocioeconomic and demographic determinants are associated with self-reporting of common cancer alarm symptoms.
Highlights
Reporting of symptoms which may signal cancer is the first step in the diagnostic pathway of cancer diseases [1]
Of the 19 856 eligible, 36 (0.2%) subjects could not participate because they were suffering from dementia or had language problems
Sampling frame: Randomly selected citizens living in the former County of Funen, Denmark aged 20 years or older. (n = 20 000, men = 10 000, women = 10 000)
Summary
Reporting of symptoms which may signal cancer is the first step in the diagnostic pathway of cancer diseases. Public awareness and knowledge of cancer symptoms are sparse, and many people do not seek medical help when having possible cancer symptoms. As social inequality is associated with cancer knowledge, cancer awareness, and information-seeking, our hypothesis is that social inequality may exist in the general population with respect to reporting of cancer alarm symptoms. The aim of this study was to investigate possible associations between socioeconomic and demographic determinants and reporting of common cancer alarm symptoms. Cancer alarm symptoms are common in the general population [2]. Public awareness and knowledge of cancer symptoms are sparse and many people do not seek medical help when experiencing cancer symptoms. Increasing focus is on raising awareness in the population of early symptoms of cancer in order to increase the ability to notice and report alarm symptoms [5,6,7,8]
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