Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the presence of visiting lecturer-guided class on children’s knowledge of cancer prevention and perceptions of cancer patients, conducting surveys before and after the cancer education classes at local elementary schools that are pioneering cancer education. We implemented self-administered questionnaire surveys with 571 sixth-grade children at nine elementary schools receiving cancer education in the Tokyo metropolitan area from September 2013 to February 2014. The surveys were conducted twice in each classroom: 1 week before the cancer education class and 1 week after. The questionnaire items included participants’ gender, cancer prevention information, and perceptions of cancer patients with the following description: “looks pitiful,” “always depressed,” “bedridden and hospitalized,” “excessive smoking and drinking,” “looks thin and pale,” “no visible change despite cancer,” and “always bright and cheerful.” Children who had not attended the cancer education day, or had not completed both the pre- and post-test, were excluded from the analysis. Regardless of whether there visiting lecturer-guided class was provided, the possibility of improving children’s knowledge of cancer prevention was demonstrated. On the other hand, in the post-class surveys, compared to the group with visiting lecturer-guided class, the group without it had a significantly lower percentage of persons selecting “Looks pitiful” (76.2%/63.5%, p = 0.002) and significantly higher percentages for “Too much smoking and drinking,” and “Looks thin and pale” (50.2%/63.5%, p = 0.002; 18.8%/31.1%, p = 0.001). Therefore, study is needed into cancer education coordinated with relevant institutions in order to more effectively utilize visiting lecturers and the like.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all administrators and students of the participating schools for their help with this study. We also thank Professor Seiji Ueda, University of the Sacred Heart, Tokyo, and members of the society of School Health and Health Education for their assistance in providing an overview of school health promotion in several regions in Japan.
Financial Disclosure
This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Health and Labor Sciences Research (H24-Ganrinsho-Wakate-002, H29-Ganseisaku-Ippan-020) from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan, and the National Cancer Center Research and Development Fund (H28-A-23).
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HYS, KK, YK, and MY conceived and designed the experiments. HYS and KK performed the experiments. HYS, KK, HH, and KS designed the collaborative project. All authors contributed to interpretation of data, wrote, reviewed, and approved the final manuscript.
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This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Japan Women’s College of Physical Education (Application No. 2013-25, Approval date September 3, 2013).
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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Yako-Suketomo, H., Katanoda, K., Kawamura, Y. et al. Children’s Knowledge of Cancer Prevention and Perceptions of Cancer Patients: Comparison Before and After Cancer Education with the Presence of Visiting Lecturer -Guided Class. J Canc Educ 34, 1059–1066 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-018-1408-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-018-1408-7