P-217 The knowledge and awareness for colorectal cancer in advanced colorectal cancer patients in China: A national multicenter study

Abstract

Colorectal cancer is the third most common malignant tumor globally, affecting public health seriously. In decades, the disease burden of colorectal cancer in China has been increasing significantly. However, the profile for colorectal cancer patients, especially advanced stage groups, is still not clear currently. Therefore, the current study evaluated the knowledge and awareness of colorectal cancer in advanced colorectal cancer patients. This study was a multicenter, cross-sectional study which launched in December 2019. To improve the representation of the study population, nineteen sites were included based on stratified sampling across seven geographical regions in China. Of these, ten sites were tertiary cancer hospitals and nine were tertiary general hospitals. And it also allocated the sample size to each site according to the total population data and gender ratio released by government. After written informed consent was obtained, each subject would complete a semi-structured questionnaire interview about the knowledge and awareness of colorectal cancer. All data were input and checked independently by two persons to build the database. In total, 4589 advanced colorectal cancer patients were enrolled. The mean age was 61 years old. There were 2730 males and 1859 females, with a ratio of 1.47. Before colorectal cancer was diagnosed, a majority of patients had limited knowledge and awareness about colorectal cancer. For risk factors, screening, and treatment of colorectal cancer, the proportion of “Don’t know” was up to 65%, 84.4%, and 55.8%, respectively. Of the patients, 69.3% paid little attention to the relevant information of colorectal cancer. Meanwhile, 97.4% did not do colonoscopy screening before being diagnosed, and the major reason was “Don’t know that they needed to do colonoscopy screening regularly” (86.9%). Logistic regressions analysis revealed that the low education level (P < 0.001), family income (P < 0.001), and clinical stage (P = 0.0046) were correlated with the low knowledge and awareness. The findings suggested that advanced colorectal cancer patients had limited knowledge and awareness of colorectal cancer in China, which affected the screening, early diagnosis, and treatment. In the future, it is necessary to enhance the health education and propaganda activities in relation to colorectal cancer to improve the public's knowledge and awareness.