ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S2678

Interdisciplinary - Education in radiation therapy

ESTRO 2024

variables between medical students and non-medical students. Cross-tabulation was used to analyse the relationship between two or more variables. This also allowed for exploration into subgroup differences.

Results:

In this population-based study amongst undergraduate medical and art students aged 18–26, the highest awareness of risk factors was reported in weight, sun behaviours, drinking alcohol, smoking, and family history of cancer, with awareness levels at 90% or over. Knowledge was much lower across both groups for risk factors such as unprotected sex, HPV and vaccination, air pollution, and Crohn's disease. Overall, medical students were able to identify potential risk factors better than art students, especially when asked questions with medical terminology that non-medical students may be unfamiliar with. Results pose similarity to previous studies such as Wardle et al. (2001), with smoking (86%) as one of the most known risk factors. When analysed by subgroup, risk factor awareness was highest for commonly known risk factors such as sunbed use (99%), smoking and obesity (86%). Unprotected sex (58%) and HPV and infection (59%) had the lowest awareness as risk factors for both groups. Men (66%) had greater risk factor awareness than women (57%). Previous research has shown that increased knowledge of risk factors is linked to increased educational status, yet for certain risk factors medical students showed similar lack of knowledge when compared to non-medical students who don’t directly study a health-related course. Medical students were able to identify risk factors better than most non-medical students. Table 1. demonstrates the Asymptotic Significance when employing the Mann Whitney U test with the grouping variable of medical vs non-medical courses to determine the statistical significance between the two.

Conclusion:

There is a need for improved health education for both healthcare and non-healthcare students. Interventions at an early stage would be beneficial to help increase awareness for risk factors of cancer. Improved sexual health education is needed for students as there is still limited knowledge in this area. Universities could collaborate to implement evidence-based interventions that can improve awareness. Future research would be beneficial to explore if students still engage in these behaviours whilst understanding the risk involved. It would also be beneficial to consider including questions on awareness of cancer screening and early detection methods, as there are limited questions on risk factors for cancer. This could help provide additional insight into the participants overall knowledge of cancer.

Keywords: Students, Risk factors, Cancer

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