Comparing Educational Sessions on Prostate Cancer Screening in Black Men
Posted: Tuesday, May 26, 2020
A team of researchers from New York found that black men who discussed prostate cancer screening with community health workers showed greater improvement in their knowledge of prostate cancer when compared with a group who had similar discussions with physicians. This study by Joseph E. Ravnell, MD, of New York University Langone Health, and colleagues was highlighted during a special event for media conducted by the American Urological Association (AUA) and published in The Journal of Urology (Abstract PD53-10).
“Although the biologic behavior of certain benign and malignant disease may have racial differences, socioeconomic disparity creates another critical driver for adversity,” said Robert Waterhouse, MD, a urology specialist at Carolina Urology Partners, Gastonia, North Carolina, who moderated this AUA press session.
The study recruited 118 black men in eight different community-based settings to undergo a cancer screening education session led by either a community health worker or a physician. A revised version of the Decisional Conflict Scale was used, where higher scores indicated greater conflict, both before and after the intervention, to assess the participants’ decisional conflict. In addition, men in this study were assessed based on their knowledge of prostate cancer and screening as well as their perception of the speaker before and after the intervention.
Both groups showed a reduction in decisional conflict, with no significant difference between the groups (0.49 for physician-led vs. 0.62 for community health worker–led). The community health worker group showed a significant increase in their knowledge after the appointment, with a change of 5.1 more correct answers compared with a change of 2.6 in the physician-led group. Of note, the men in the physician group seemed to be more likely to believe the speaker knew a lot about prostate-specific antigen testing and were thus more likely to trust the speaker.
Disclosures: For full disclosures of study authors, visit auajournals.org.
