452P - Medical and paramedical students’ awareness of environmental risk factors for cancer

Background

Cancer is a serious disease, associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Despite the high burden of cancer, many risk factors have been linked to carcinogenesis. Some of them are preventable and with good awareness, they could be one of our tools in relieving that burden. Our study aimed to assess medical and paramedical students’ awareness of the environmental risk factors for cancer.

Methods

A web-based cross-sectional study was conducted among medical and para-medical students of Menoufia University. The data were collected from April to May 2022. We used a pre-validated questionnaire that was designed to address knowledge about different environmental risk factors for cancer.

Results

We obtained responses from 251 participants. The majority of respondents were medical students (n= 204; 81.3%), males (n= 157; 62.5%), and living in rural areas (n=160; 63.7%). Most participants (n=173; 68.9%) had a knowledge score of more than 50% with an average score of 24 out of 43 (24.22 ± 10.7). There was no Knowledge difference between medical and paramedical students (n=144; 70.6% vs n=29; 61.7%; p=0.237). Most students recognized radiation, smoking, and alcohol as risk factors for cancer (76.9%, 73.7%, and 70.7%). Regarding Vit D deficiency, paramedical students were more aware than medical students (51% vs 33,3%; p=0.023). However, a lower percentage acknowledged high red meat intake and low fiber diet (29.5%) as potential contributors to the occurrence of cancer.

Conclusions

There was good knowledge among medical and paramedical students about most of the environmental risk factors related to cancer pathogenesis. However, there was less awareness of diet-related ones, especially those related to colorectal cancer.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.