Breast Cancer Survivorship Care: Targeting a Colorectal Cancer Education Intervention
1
Public Health Epidemiologist, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Division of Community and Public Health, Office of Epidemiology, 920 Wildwood Drive, Jefferson City, MO 65109, USA
2
Sinclair School of Nursing, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
3
Chronic Disease and Nutrition Epidemiology Team, Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Division of Community and Public Health, Office of Epidemiology, 920 Wildwood Drive, Jefferson City, MO 65109, USA
4
School of Medicine, University of Missouri-Columbia, MO 65212, USA
5
College of Education, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Stephen B. Liggett
J. Pers. Med. 2015, 5(3), 296-310; https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm5030296
Received: 13 May 2015 / Revised: 27 July 2015 / Accepted: 31 July 2015 / Published: 6 August 2015
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Long-term Cancer Survivorship)
Breast cancer survivors are at risk of developing a second primary cancer. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading second primary cancers, and it is often preventable. We developed a multi-component educational tool to inform and encourage women breast cancer survivors to engage in CRC screening. To assess the strengths and weakness of the tool and to improve the relevancy to the target audience, we convened four focus groups of women breast cancer survivors in Missouri. We also assessed the potential impact of the tool on the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs regarding CRC and collected information on the barriers to CRC screening through pre- and post-focus groups’ questionnaires. A total of 43 women breast cancer survivors participated and provided very valuable suggestions on design and content to update the tool. Through the process and comparing pre- and post-focus group assessments, a significantly higher proportion of breast cancer survivors strongly agreed or agreed that CRC is preventable (78.6% vs. 96.9%, p = 0.02) and became aware that they were at a slightly increased risk for CRC (18.6% vs. 51.7%, p = 0.003). The most cited barrier was the complexity of preparation for colonoscopy.
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Keywords:
female; breast neoplasms; colorectal neoplasms; survivors; colonoscopy; focus groups; attitudes
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Homan, S.G.; Yun, S.; Stewart, B.R.; Armer, J.M. Breast Cancer Survivorship Care: Targeting a Colorectal Cancer Education Intervention. J. Pers. Med. 2015, 5, 296-310.
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