Obstacles to skin self-examination: are frontier adults inclined abstainers?

ABSTRACT

Individuals residing in U.S. frontier counties have limited access to dermatology care and higher melanoma mortality rates. Given these limitations, frontier residents rely disproportionately on skin self-examinations (SSE) for early detection of melanoma, though little is known about their SSE behaviors and barriers to conducting SSEs. The goal of the present study was to identify obstacles to SSE performance via a survey of adults (N = 107) living in a U.S. frontier county. Approximately 43% of participants were classified as inclined abstainers – individuals who intended to perform SSE, but failed to follow through. Compared to those who did follow through, inclined abstainers were more likely to be hindered by twelve barriers, including forgetting, letting other tasks get in the way of SSE, and struggling to identify a good time or routine for SSE performance. The barriers to action for these inclined abstainers are modifiable – for example, not remembering to do it – and well positioned for a behavioral intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• SSE
• barriers
• inclined abstainers
• frontier county
• rural
• skin cancer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a New Innovator grant [#DP2EB022360] from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [PI: JDJ; Co-I: AJK; Co-I: DG] and in part by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health [K07CA196985 to YPW and 3P30CA042014-29S7 to JDJ]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health