Barriers to Seeking Help for Skin Cancer Detection in Rural Australia
by
Kate M. Fennell 1,2,3,4,*
, Kimberley Martin 2,5, Carlene J. Wilson 1,2, Camilla Trenerry 1,2,3,6, Greg Sharplin 2 and James Dollman 3,4,7
Kate M. Fennell 1,2,3,4,*, Kimberley Martin 2,5, Carlene J. Wilson 1,2, Camilla Trenerry 1,2,3,6, Greg Sharplin 2 and James Dollman 3,4,7
1
Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Sturt Road, Bedford Park 5042, South Australia, Australia
2
Cancer Council SA, 202 Greenhill Road, Eastwood 5063, South Australia, Australia
3
Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men’s Health, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, South Australia, Australia
4
Sansom Institute for Health Research, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5001, South Australia, Australia
5
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Adelaide 5001, South Australia, Australia
6
School of Psychology, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, South Australia, Australia
7
Alliance for Research in Exercise, Nutrition and Activity, School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide 5001, South Australia, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Hans-Jürgen Möller
J. Clin. Med. 2017, 6(2), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm6020019
Received: 22 December 2016 / Revised: 31 January 2017 / Accepted: 8 February 2017 / Published: 13 February 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Psychosocial Interaction between Physicians and Patients)
This study explores rural South Australians’ barriers to help-seeking for skin cancer detection. A total of 201 randomly selected rural adults (18–94 years, 66% female) were presented with a skin-cancer-related scenario via telephone and were asked the extent to which various barriers would impede their help-seeking, based on an amended version of the Barriers to Help-Seeking Scale. Older (≥63 years) and less educated participants endorsed barriers more strongly than their younger, more educated counterparts in the following domains; “Concrete barriers and distrust of caregivers”, “Emotional control”, “Minimising problem and Normalisation”, “Need for control and self-reliance” (every domain other than “Privacy”). Socioeconomic disadvantage, gender, and farmer status did not predict stronger overall barriers, but some gender and occupation-related differences were detected at the item level. Farmers were also more likely to endorse the “Minimising problem and normalization” domain than their non-farmer working rural counterparts. Widely endorsed barriers included the tendency to minimise the problem, a desire to remain in control/not be influenced by others, reluctance to show emotion or complain, and having concerns about privacy or waiting times.
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Keywords:
rural; barrier; help; help-seeking; skin; cancer; psychosocial; physician-patient relations
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
Fennell, K.M.; Martin, K.; Wilson, C.J.; Trenerry, C.; Sharplin, G.; Dollman, J. Barriers to Seeking Help for Skin Cancer Detection in Rural Australia. J. Clin. Med. 2017, 6, 19.
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