Prostate cancer awareness at Brigham Young University of Idaho: A cross-sectional study

Introduction

Prostate cancer screening continues to be a huge controversial topic in our society mostly because of the benefit of diagnosing it versus the risk of overtreating it¹. Prostate cancer is not the deadliest type of cancer, but it is very common in older men. Early screenings have been proven to help diagnose prostate cancer sooner¹. Ignorance about prostate cancer can be a huge problem impeding men from getting screened. According to The American Cancer Society, each year more than 30,000 men die of this condition¹, making it the second deadliest cancer for American men. However, the American Cancer Society also stated that an early diagnosis yields a five-year survival rate of almost 100%. Hence, it is important to be aware of the disease and encourage prostate cancer screening by age 50¹.

This study was performed in order to establish the level of awareness of prostate cancer among college students at Brigham Young University of Idaho (BYU-I).

Methods

Results

In total, 17,562 students were eligible to participate in the survey. Only 55 responses were received, of which 7 had missing data and were not included in the analysis. The final data included 48 participants aged from 18 to 59 (years). 31 participants were women and 17 were men. Our sample matched the age of the BYU-I student population with a mean age of 25.5 years old, and a median of 22 years old. The study shows that knowledge about prostate cancer varied greatly among BYU-I students. Although this data represented the student body at BYU-I well, there was no correlation between age and familiarity with prostate cancer (Table 1).

We also tested to see whether or not gender and familiarity with prostate cancer would yield a correlation (Table 2). The 0.100 in Table 2 shows the correlation is very weak. Women reported to have more familiarity with prostate cancer than men. The woman who ranked her familiarity with prostate cancer the highest used an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The most common answers were 2, 3, and 4. These numbers are very low compared to the amount of prostate cancer that occurs in the population. It was interesting to see that although prostate cancer affects men, in our study fewer men had heard of prostate cancer than women (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Awareness of prostate cancer and gender among Brigham Young University of Idaho students.

Green, women; blue, men.

Discussion

Prostate cancer is a significant public health issue in the United States. The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2011, about 240,890 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and 33,720 men died from it³.

Research is battling against the rising issue of prostate cancer. Attempts to increase awareness have yielded successful results. Prostate Cancer Awareness Week is held every third week of September by the Prostate Cancer Education Council, which offers a great opportunity to the community in the US to learn more about prostate cancer and to encourage early detection and diagnosis of the disease⁴. Prostate cancer awareness has been one of the top priorities in order to cure or treat prostate cancer effectively⁵. The Journal of Cancer Education has stated that young adults’ knowledge of cancer is not a greatly researched area⁵. This disease has claimed many lives so far. The aim of this study was to highlight the level of awareness in the population of students at BYU-I, with the hope to increase knowledge of how devastating the disease is and how manageable it is with the proper treatment.

The present survey showed clear evidence of the lack of prostate cancer awareness among college students at BYU-I. Assuming that most college campuses are similar to BYU-I, the results are most likely representative of prostate cancer awareness in other undergraduate college campuses; however, due to the lack of a substantial number of responses, this data needs further investigation to be representational of under-graduate college campuses throughout the United States. Varying results will occur depending on the size of the university, environment, and whether or not the university is for post-graduates. College majors and student backgrounds may have a huge effect on college students’ awareness of prostate cancer. The awareness of this disease is not high among college aged students attending BYU-I; therefore, necessary steps should be taken to promote more awareness and early screening for prostate cancer in this setting.

Conclusion

This study shows a significant lack of awareness of prostate cancer among Brigham Young University- Idaho students. Necessary steps should be taken to promote more awareness and early screening for prostate cancer. Educational opportunities should be offered for recognition of symptoms and to promote early diagnosis for a potential curative management.

Data availability

F1000Research: Dataset 1. Survey data on prostate cancer awareness at Brigham Young University of Idaho. , 10.5256/f1000research.16566.d222459⁶.