New CaP study sets focus on the relationship between cancer beliefs and cancer experience
Do you think that a cancer diagnosis is a death sentence? Your answer seems to be associated with whether you know someone with cancer. Results from a new study at the Research Centre for Cancer Diagnosis in Primary Care (CaP) indicate that our beliefs about cancer are directly related to our experience with the disease
Previous studies have shown a connection between negative beliefs about cancer and more advanced cancer disease at the time of diagnosis, whereto these new results are an important addition. Thus, the results from the study indicate that our beliefs about cancer change in line with our experience with the disease. The new research results are now published in the international scientific journal Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.
Whether cancer is seen as a death sentence depends on whether you know someone who has cancer
The survey is based on telephone interviews with 2,992 randomly selected Danes over 30 years. In the interviews participants were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with six beliefs about cancer, for example, if cancer is a death sentence, if people with cancer can continue their normal activities, if cancer treatments are worse than the cancer itself, and if they would prefer not to know if they had cancer. Participants were also asked whether they have (had) cancer and / or if they have a close relative who had been diagnosed with cancer.
Persons with close relatives who have been diagnosed with cancer accounted for 73% and were used as a reference group. Compared to this group, people who had no experience with cancer or had had cancer themselves were less likely to believe that cancer treatment is worse than the cancer itself. People who had no experience with cancer were less likely to believe that cancer is a death sentence, but at the same time more likely to not want to know if they have cancer themselves.
Cancer beliefs are dynamic
The results of this study support the idea that cancer beliefs are dynamic and change in line with cancer experience. Therefore, this is an important addition to the earlier results that mainly connected cancer beliefs with static factors, such as ethnicity and socioeconomic position.
The research team behind the study emphasizes that future studies should investigate whether individuals with personal, vicarious or no cancer experience reveal different patterns of healthcare seeking when experiencing a possible cancer symptom.
Read the article “Cancer beliefs in cancer survivors, cancer relatives and persons with no cancer experience”.
Further information
Associate professor Anette Fischer Pedersen
Research Centre for Cancer Diagnosis in Primary Care (CaP) and The Research Unit for General Practice
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Phone: +458716 7917
afp@ph.au.dk