Threat Appraisal of Skin Cancer in Farmers of Chaldoran County, 2014-2015

Authors

1 Ph.D Candidate in Health Education and Health Promotion, Student Research Committee, Dept. of Health Education and Health Promotion, Health Faculty, Tabriz University of Medical Science, Tabriz, Iran

2 MSc in Health Education, Ilam Network of Health and Treatment, Ilam University of Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran

3 Cancer Research center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

4 Director of General Office of Health, Tehran Municipality, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Skin cancer is one of the most common cancers around the world as well as in Iran. Identifying the farmers' perceptions about skin cancer might be effective in the design of intervention programs for preventing it. Therefore, this study aimed to survey the threat appraisal to skin cancer in the farmers of the Chaldoran County in Iran.

Materials & Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 238 subjects were selected from the farmers’ rural regions by multistage random sampling. To collect the data, a reliable and valid questionnaire based on protection motivation theory structures was used. Descriptive statistics (frequency, relative Frequency, mean and standard deviation) and analytical statistics (One Way ANOVA) was used to analyze the date. The level of significance was considered less than 0.05.

Results: The mean ± standard deviation age of participants was 35.40±8.79 years old. A statistically significant association between perceived threat with education level (p=0.001) and threat appraisal with education (p=0.04) was observed (p<0.05). 50.04% of subjects had a low threat appraisal to skin cancer. Perceived severity was high only in 15.5% of the individuals. 23.1% of farmers had high extrinsic and intrinsic rewards to inconsistent behaviours of skin cancer. Threat appraisal status of farmers showed that 119 people had unacceptable levels; 26 people had borderline levels; and 99 people had acceptable level behaviours.

Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated that farmers did not consider themselves to be vulnerable to skin cancer.  Therefore, design and implementations of appropriate intervention programs to inform the farmers seems essential in the relevant field.

Keywords

References

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