Abstract
Disease prevention is a multifaceted construct that has been widely studied. Nevertheless, in spite of its importance, it is still not sufficiently considered by the general population. Since the reasons for this lack of consideration are not yet fully understood, we created an Online Prevention Survey (OPS) to investigate the role of both sociodemographic and psychological factors in predicting individuals’ spontaneous participation in secondary prevention programs. The results revealed that younger people, men, manual workers, unemployed people, and those who do not regularly practise physical activity were less likely to spontaneously participate in such programs. Furthermore, an analysis of the psychological determinants of the willingness to participate in secondary prevention programs showed that depressive symptoms negatively predict it, while an individual’s perception of receiving high social support acts as a positive predictor. Based on these results, we suggest the need for implementing new tailored approaches to promote prevention initiatives to those segments of the population which are more reluctant to spontaneously undertake prevention paths.
Highlights
Disease prevention is an umbrella term, including activities, actions, and interventions aimed to promote and preserve individuals’ health to decrease the incidence of disease outcomes in the population.Broadly, disease prevention can be divided into three main categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention
Given the lack of studies investigating the role of psychological factors in spontaneous prevention-related decisions, the main aim of the present study was to develop an online survey to investigate if depression, anxiety, perceived stress, perceived social support, general self-efficacy, and personality traits, known to play a role in adherence to illness-specific prevention programs [6,10,11,12,17,18,19], could act as positive or negative predictors even in the spontaneous decision to participate in secondary prevention programs among the general population
Other than confirming the previous observations about the role of sociodemographic factors in health-related decisions, the present study highlights the role of psychological factors, such as depressive symptoms and perceived social support, as negative and positive predictors for the spontaneous decision to participate in secondary prevention programs
Summary
Disease prevention can be divided into three main categories: primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. The present study is focused on secondary prevention, which includes preventive measures that lead to early diagnosis and prompt treatment of a disease, illness, or injury to prevent the development of severe problems. Secondary prevention primarily comprises periodical screening initiatives (i.e., blood pressure controls, physical examinations, dental exams, and so on), crucial to reducing the huge number of preventable deaths that occur every year worldwide, most of which are caused by non-communicable diseases (NCDs) [1]. Recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO) have shown that NCDs kill 41 million people every year, responsible for 71% of all deaths globally. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) account for the most deaths (17.9 million people annually), followed by cancer that causes around 9.0 million
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