Objective To understand the change in awareness of cancer prevention and control before and after health lectures among community residents.
Methods Five hundred residents from five communities were randomly selected and organized to attend designed health lectures. The lectures were given by invited experts of cancer prevention on weekend with topics of early symptoms, risk factors, and cancer-preventive lifestyle. The participants were asked to fill out the same questionnaires by trained investigators to compare the change of awareness before and 30 minutes after the lectures. Totally 490 community residents attended the lectures, and 485 residents completed two requested questionnaires.
Results After the lectures, the residents' awareness of early symptoms (78.0% v.s 89.8%, P<0.001), risk factors of cancer (77.3% v.s 86.6%, P<0.001), and lifestyle to prevent cancer (88.7% v.s 92.6%, P=0.036) were significantly improved, especially among the females (early cancer symptoms, 80.1% v.s 91.0%; risk factors of cancer, 80.0% v.s 87.2%; lifestyle to prevent cancer, 89.8% v.s 94.1%), being aged 30-years (early cancer symptoms, 77.8% v.s 89.3%; risk factors of cancer, 77.8% v.s 85.5%), and holding an education level of senior high school (early cancer symptoms, 76.2% v.s 91.9%; risk factors of cancer, 75.7% v.s 87.4%; lifestyle to prevent cancer, 88.7% v.s 95.3%) or junior college (early cancer symptoms, 85.2% v.s 95.2%; risk factors of cancer, 81.3% v.s 90.9%) (P<0.05).
Conclusion The awareness of cancer prevention and control among the community residents are greatly improved after related health lectures.
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