Health Risk Behaviors And Prostate Specific Antigen Awareness Among Men In California

Main Category: Prostate / Prostate Cancer
Also Included In: Urology / Nephrology;  Men's health
Article Date: 16 Aug 2008 - 0:00 PDT

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UroToday.com - In the August 2008 issue of the Journal of Urology, Dr. Firas Ahmed and associates investigated the correlation between certain health risk behaviors and awareness of the PSA test among men residing in California. They hypothesized that men reporting health risk behaviors would have less awareness of the PSA test.

The study used the 2003 CHIS, a population based, random digit-dialing telephone survey conducted between August 2003 and February 2004. It used a sampling approach to randomly select telephone numbers from 41 geographic sampling strata representative of the California population. Interviews were performed in multiple languages and the interview response rate was 60%. Men with prostate cancer were excluded, leaving a study population of 7,297 men.

PSA awareness was determined from the question "Have you ever heard of the PSA test?" Study variables included smoking status, walking, BMI, and binge alcohol drinking. Personal confounding variables included demographics, socioeconomic status, access to health care, health status and colon cancer screening. Age, race and ethnicity were also recorded.

Almost half of the subjects were between ages 50 and 60 years. Most were white, married and spoke only English, were up-to-date on colorectal screening and lived most of their lives in the US. Their reported health status was good or better and income were at least 300% of the federal poverty level. Most had health insurance and some college education.

The overall prevalence of PSA awareness in the study population was 73% and the prevalence of PSA testing was 39%. PSA awareness increased with age up to 70-years and then it decreased. PSA awareness was highest in white men and was positively associated with education, income, health status and the number of physician visits in the last year. Statistical analysis demonstrated that smoking, physical inactivity and obesity were significantly associated with lower odds of PSA awareness. The prevalence of PSA awareness decreased from 78% of men with no risk behaviors to 71%, 68%, and 55% in men with 1, 2, and 3 or more risk behaviors, respectively.

Ahmed FS, Borrell LN, Spencer BA
Urol. 2008 Aug;180(2):658-62
doi:10.1016/j.juro.2008.04.007

Reported by UroToday.com Contributing Editor Christopher P. Evans, MD, FACS

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