Barriers to home bowel cancer screening

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Health Behavior Research
• Cancer Screening

Background:

• Home-based bowel cancer screening kits are vital for early detection.
• Identifying and addressing barriers to kit completion and return is essential for improving screening rates.
• Previous research has highlighted various challenges, but a comprehensive psychometric instrument is needed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a psychometric instrument to measure common barriers encountered by individuals when completing and returning home bowel cancer screening kits.
• To identify the latent factor structure of these barriers.
• To compare barrier prevalence across different demographic groups.

Main Methods:

• An initial pool of 110 items was reviewed by an expert panel (n=15).
• A cross-sectional online survey was administered to 427 Australian adults.
• Exploratory factor analysis was employed to determine the underlying barrier types and their factor scores.

Main Results:

• The most frequently reported barriers were prior screening completion (32.3%), forgetting the kit (24.4%), and inadequate planning (21.8%).
• Hygiene concerns were reported by over 15% of participants.
• Four distinct barrier types were identified: disgust, avoidance, lack of autonomy, and physical difficulties.

Conclusions:

• The developed instrument effectively measures common barriers to home bowel cancer screening.
• Multi-faceted intervention strategies are recommended to address identified barriers.
• Interventions should focus on promoting planning and simplifying the stool collection process.