FRIDAY, July 30 (HealthDay News) -- Health campaigns that
highlight the problem of low screening rates for prostate cancer to
promote such screenings seem to have an unintended effect: They
discourage men from undergoing a prostate exam, a new German study
suggests.
The finding, reported in the current issue of
Psychological Science, stems from work by a research team from the University of Heidelberg that gauged the intention to get screened for prostate cancer among men over the age of 45 who reside in two German cities.
In earlier research, the study authors had found that men who
had never had such screenings tended to believe that most men
hadn't either.
In the current effort, the team exposed men who had never been
screened to one of two health information statements: either that
only 18 percent of German men had been screened in the past year,
or that 65 percent of men had been screened.
In fact, the researchers noted that both statements are
factually accurate, as the first statement referenced only a
one-year screening period while the latter statement reflected
lifetime screening patterns.
After hearing one or the other statement, the men were asked to
indicate whether they planned to undergo standard screening in the
coming year.
The investigators found that those men given indications of
higher screening patterns were much more likely to say they would
get screened. Furthermore, men given information about lower
screening patterns were less likely to give basic information
(name/address) that would garner them more information about cancer
screening.
The authors concluded that a simple shift in public health
messaging could potentially have a big impact on the motivational
power of any health promotion campaign, whether the subject be
prostate cancer screening or another important health concern, such
as good hygiene or vaccinations.
"For us it is so interesting because this is very easy to change," co-author Monika Sieverding said in a news release from the Association for Psychological Science. "There are so many barriers to cancer screening. You cannot change attitudes easily, or the image of the average cancer screening patient, but it is easy to change the framing of the campaign."
More information
For more on prostate cancer screening, visit the
U.S. National Cancer Institute.