Public Awareness and Attitude toward Oral Cancer Screening in United Arab Emirates

Natheer H Al-Rawi ； Sausan Al-Kawas ； Omer Imad

《Journal of International Dental and Medical Research》 5卷3期 (2012/12) Pp. 149-154

並列摘要

Cancer is a major health problem in both developed and developing countries. Fighting against cancer require health care professionals to be well trained in diagnosing as well as organizing public education programs. In most Asian countries including UAE, there are no organized oral cancer screening and education programs. The aim of this study is to evaluate public knowledge of oral cancer risk factors, to assess their awareness toward oral cancer examination. A self-administered questionnaire was designed to collect information regarding subject's awareness of oral cancer, knowledge of other conditions associated with alcohol and tobacco use and perceived risk for oral cancer and subject's attitude regarding oral cancer screening. A convenient sample of 1055 subjects agreed to participate and answered the questionnaire. The majority of the participants (68.99%, n=692) were below 30 years of age. More than 2/3 of them were non-local (residents from other nationalities) and were well educated (71.81%). We found significant difference in the subject's awareness of the existence of an oral cancer examination at Bivariate levels among age, gender, educational levels and those who had higher risk factor knowledge scores .Regarding knowledge about early signs of oral cancer 26% of respondents choose sore lesions in mouth that does not heal as an early sign of oral cancer followed by red patches in mouth that are not painful (20.8%) then white patches in mouth that are not painful (16%). Our results demonstrate that subject's awareness in UAE population have relatively little accurate knowledge about oral cancer. This lack of knowledge could result in simply ignoring a sign of oral cancer that, in turn, would have serious consequences. Without accurate and appropriate information, people can neither make nor be expected to make informed, intelligent decision about their own health or seek professional help.

並列關鍵字

Oral cancer ； screening ； knowledge ； attitude