Medicina Comunitária e Educação em Saúde

Abstrato

Practical Application of Health Belief Model to Enhance the Uptake of Colorectal Cancer Screening

Marzieh Moattar, Mahin Roozitalab, Sakineh Gholamzadeh, Mehdi Saberi Firoozi and Najaf Zare

Background Health care providers have a pivotal role in promoting people’s screening behaviors resulting in early detection of cancer. This study was conducted to examine the effect of an intervention program based on Health Belief Model (HBM) on knowledge and participation of administrative personnel of one of the major medical schools of Iran in colorectal cancer screening program Methods 156 official administrative personnel’s with average risk for colorectal cancer working in Shiraz Mesical Sciences University including its affiliated hospitals were enrolled in the study. Their demographic data, level of knowledge, willingness and perception barriers to participate in screening programs were examined via two separated questionnaires. All the subjects were asked to provide stool sample for fecal occult blood test (FOBT). Then they were randomly assigned to experimental or control group (n=78).The experimental group was exposed to the interventional program. Two groups of the study were followed for three months. Then knowledge and the rate of subjects' participation in screening program were examined. Results The results of the study revealed that most of the subjects are not interested in colorectal screening tests. Their most perceived barrier for (FOBT) and colonoscopy were lack of time and low perceived susceptibility (feeling to be healthy), respectively. Pre (1.2 ± 4.7) to post-test (11.2 ± 1.9) changes in knowledge score of the experimental group was higher than that of the control group (1.7±3.9 in the pretest and 2.6 ± 3.8 in the post test). Furthermore, participation of the experimental group in screening program was significantly higher than that of the control group (p<0.001). Conclusion Application of HBM in the interventional program on colorectal cancer may result in an increase in the knowledge & participation of subjects in the screening program.