| Abstract [eng] |
The study provides an in-depth analysis of prostate cancer descriptive epidemiology, health beliefs and knowledge of men who have participated in the prostate cancer screening, as well as the relationship between their beliefs and social demographic factors. During the 1998 and 2007, several periods with different rates of change in prostate cancer incidence and mortality were observed. Levels of prostate cancer incidence and mortality grew at similar rates between 2005 and 2007. During the thirty-year period analysed, the number of newly-diagnosed prostate cancer cases grew in the age categories of men under 54 and from 55 to 74, while there was a twofold decrease in men aged 75 and older. In incidence trend analysis, when assessing two factors, the effect of age was three times as important as the effect of period and five times the effect of cohort. A statistically significant positive association was found between the incidence of prostate cancer and funding received for the prevention programme, indicating that more new prostate cancer cases are diagnosed in municipalities that absorbed more funding. However, 25 per cent of municipalities showed a opposite trend of no relationship between funding and newly-diagnosed cases of prostate cancer. The level of health beliefs among men who participated in prostate cancer screening was fairly high (2.2 points out of 3), with health motivation (2.53 points) and perceived benefits (2.50) expressed most strongly. In the context of social and demographic factors, social status and education level affected health beliefs most: the most health-conscious men were white-collar workers and the least health-conscious were the unemployed. Perceived susceptibility to prostate cancer, severity and barriers to participating in prostate cancer screening were most strongly expressed among men with less education. The level of knowledge among men about prostate cancer risk factors, clinical symptoms, side-effects from treatment and the limitations of screening for prostate cancer were medium. The lowest level of knowledge was among respondents living without family and the highest in the group of white-collar workers. The average total score for prostate cancer awareness showed no statistically significant differences in relation to age groups, education level, marital status or social groups. The results of the study will be useful for monitoring prostate cancer incidence and mortality trends in the future, and clarifying effectiveness of screening, and the need to give more attention to programme participators informed choice. The results of the study will be useful for monitoring prostate cancer incidence and mortality trends in the future, for clarifying the effectiveness of screening, and for assessing the informativeness of the programmme participants. |
