Medical students' knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices of cancer prevention and detection

Knowledge, Attitudes, and Preventive Practice Towards Breast Cancer among General Practitioner Health Professionals in Morocco

Background:

Breast cancer is the most common cancer of women in Morocco and its diagnosis is usually made at advanced stages. The aim of this study was to describe the knowledge, practices and attitudes of general practitioners regarding early detection of breast cancer.

Methods:

A cross-sectional study was carried out during July 2011 on a sample of 140 general practitioners employed in basic health care facilities.

Results:

The majority (85.7%) of general practitioners were aware of the existence of a ministerial circular which aimed to generalize breast cancer screening. Systematic practice of clinical breast examination was reported by 18.0% of doctors for every woman between 45 and 70 years and a systematic breast self-examination check-up was reported by 59.4% of physicians. Mammography was requested by 54.1% of physicians in the presence of risk factors. Females and physicians practicing in urban areas were less likely to have a knowledge, attitudes and practices score higher than 8 as compared to male physicians and those practicing in rural areas.

Discussion and conclusion:

Our study showed that the knowledge, attitudes and practices of general practitioners regarding the early detection of breast cancer program were not satisfactory; hence the urgent need for improved implementation of the program in the affected regions.

Tobacco dependence treatment teaching by medical school clerkship preceptors: survey responses from more than 1,000 US medical students

OBJECTIVE

To determine factors associated with tobacco cessation counseling in medical school clerkships.

METHODS

Third-year medical students at 10 medical schools across the United States completed a 100-item survey, measuring the frequency with which they experienced their preceptors providing clinical teaching components: clear instruction, feedback, modeling behavior, setting clear objectives, and responding to questions about tobacco dependence counseling as well as frequency of use of tobacco prompts and office systems. Our primary dependent measure was student self-reported skill level for items of tobacco dependence treatment (e.g. "5As").

RESULTS

Surveys were completed by 1213 students. For both family medicine and internal medicine clerkships, modeling and providing clear instruction on ways to provide tobacco counseling were reported most commonly. In contrast, providing feedback and clear objectives for tobacco dependence treatment lagged behind. Overall, students who reported preceptors' provision of optimal clinical teaching components and office system prompts in both family medicine and internal medicine clerkships had higher self-reported skill (P<0.001) than students with no exposure or exposure during only one of the clerkships.

CONCLUSIONS

Future educational interventions intended to help students adopt effective tobacco dependence treatment techniques should be engineered to facilitate these critical precepting components.