An Assessment of Knowledge of and Attitudes towards Prostate Cancer Screening among Men Aged 40 to 60 Years at Chitungwiza Central Hospital in Zimbabwe
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Abstract
Objective: to assess the knowledge of prostate cancer and screening practices among males aged 40 t0 60 years.
Design: descriptive survey
Setting: The study was carried out at one of the Chitungwiza Central hospital in Harare Zimbabwe a referral hospital and the study participants were drawn from the hospital outpatient departments
Methods: A total of 200( n=200) males aged 40 years to 60 years who attended the central hospital outpatients department and casualty department and had no previous prostate cancer diagnosis were interviewed between March 2014 and December 2014.
A simple random sampling was used and a sample of 200 adult males aged between 40 – 60 who were then interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The Health Belief Model was used based on the assumption that knowledge of prostate cancer will influence men to seek screening early.
Conceptual framework: The Health Belief Model was used.
Results:
The result of the study indicates that men have no adequate knowledge regarding prostate cancer screening. Despite the fact that 68% of the respondents had heard about prostate cancer screening 72% of the participants did not know about the screening methods and 68% did not know where to go for screening. 76% of the participants did not know about self prostate examination.
A total of 52% of the participants got the information from family, friends and the newspapers. Newspapers do not contain detailed information; and family and friends may report inaccurate information. This resulted in men not having adequate knowledge on screening procedure It was recommended that Institutions should have Well Men Clinics, where men can go and get counseling on health issues and be taught about the benefits of prostate cancer screening. Men usually do not frequent health institutes like hospitals and clinics; it is difficult to come into contact with a health men at these institutes, so promotion of prostate cancer screening can be done through the media. Using churches as well as social networks
Health personnel education should be engineered more towards educating the cadres on the benefits of primary prevention of diseases such as prostate cancer. Nurses should be able to initiate programs to promote early detection of diseases. Screening for prostate cancer results in early detection of the disease hence early treatment resulting in reduction of complications and deaths.