Conhecimento populacional sobre prevenção e reconhecimento de sinais do câncer de pele: um estudo transversal

Abstract

The prevalence of skin cancer is increasing considerably in Brazil in recent years. The population's knowledge about this condition can be decisive for the clinical outcome, since its poor prognosis is associated with the progression of the disease. In this sense, the objective of this study was to verify the knowledge of the population in a university environment about the characteristics, risk factors and care in the prevention of skin cancer. This is a cross-sectional study carried out in Maringá-PR, using a validated questionnaire. 458 individuals were interviewed, which 62.01% were women and 37.99% were men, ranging from students in the exact, human or biological fields and professionals at the institution. For analysis, family income and skin phototype of respondents and family income were considered. The methodology was based on a score made by scoring the questions, separating the interviewees into groups with low and high knowledge. To measure the level of information, based on the variables, univariate and multivariate logistic regression was used. The data obtained showed that most of the participants had good knowledge related to the general aspects of the disease, which was positively related to two sociodemographic variables: area of study of the participants - health and family income - above 6 minimum wages. However, preventive practices have shown little widespread, even in groups with good knowledge. Therefore, this work shows the need for informational actions on skin neoplasms, and their practice by the population, in order to help in the prevention and early detection of the disease, which provides a better prognosis.