Abstract
Introduction Skin cancer is one of the most growing types of cancer, especially in the Mediterranean, even though it is a preventable disease. The purpose of this study is to assess medical students' knowledge, attitude, and practice about skin cancer prevention and detection. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted using a validated structured questionnaire covering the areas of knowledge, attitude, and practice of the study participants. Results The study involved 1530 students; 55.3% were females. Most of the students possessed proper knowledge about skin cancer (81%). The most prevalent skin cancer risk factors were sun exposure during the day (83.5%) and immunosuppression (71.2%). More than half of the students did not have any habits of skin examination (61.5%). 20% of the students never used sunscreen, while only 20% of them avoided sun exposure during day hours. Conclusion The general level of the medical students' knowledge of skin cancer and its risk factors appeared to be higher than what is found in other studies; it is reasonable as the study participants were medical students. However, the protective behavior from the sun was inadequate when compared to the level of knowledge reported. Additional education about the behavior toward sun exposure and protection against skin cancer may be needed to be implemented in the dermatology curriculum.
Highlights
Skin cancer is one of the most growing types of cancer, especially in the Mediterranean, even though it is a preventable disease. e purpose of this study is to assess medical students’ knowledge, attitude, and practice about skin cancer prevention and detection
About 46.9% of the participants correctly identified basal cell carcinoma as the most common type of skin cancer. e majority of them identified melanoma characteristics as a mole with an asymmetrical border (63%), while more than half of the students selected it as changes in color (59.9%)
Romero-Collado A et al, who conducted their study among primary care nurses in Spain, found that only 11 out of 137 nursing students (8.0%) performed sun protection recommendations. is was the least activity performed and reflects poor skills in health prevention according to skin cancer [11]. is highlights an additional point about the importance of health education about skin cancer: it is reasonable to work on improving primary and secondary prevention rather than the management of the disease, which, as an example, costs more than 400 million dollars every year in Australia [18]
Summary
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with an estimated lifetime risk of 1 in every two people [1, 2]. The importance of interventions and strategies that aim to reduce the health and economic burden of skin cancer One such strategy is improving patient health education that promotes sun-protective behaviors. Training the students in the medical-related fields, mainly those directed towards primary care, about the importance of sun-protective behaviors is crucial to decreasing skin cancer incidence. Primary care physicians possess more chances to conduct skin examinations and educate patients on sun-protective behaviors [12]; recent reports pointed out the importance of health education of medical students about the effect of sun exposure on human health [13,14,15,16]. P values of less than 0.05 were considered to be statistically significant
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