The knowledge, beliefs and practises of university students on testicular cancer and testicular self-examination

AIM:This cross sectional research was planned to determine the knowledge, belief and practice of university students on testicular cancer(TC) and testicular self-examination(TSE) and to obtain a database on this subject. METHODS:The universe of research was composed of 381 male-students who studied at 4th class of primary teaching in OMU Faculty of Education. The selection of sampling wasn't done and aimed to achieve all the universe; it was performed with 304 students because of the fact that the students who rejected to participate, couldn't be contacted and did some mistakes while filling the data collection forms included out of the research. Data was collected by a questionnaire which was developed by the researcher in the direction of literature and it also included socio-demographical characteristics related to TC and TSE, general knowledge and health beliefs towards TC and TSE of the students. SPSS 16.0 package program was used in the statistical analyses of data. In the analyses; percentage, mean and chi-square tests were performed. RESULTS:The students participating in research were at the ages of 20-40 and the mean age was 23.16±1.94. Of the students. 87.2% were in the 20-24 age group and 98.7% were single. Oof the students, 42.4% stated that they had never heard diagnosis of testicular cancer and 93,8% also implied that they had never heard TSE before. Of the students 3.3% referred that they had known how to apply TSE and 47.4% stated that they were aware of the importance of early diagnosis. Of the students 84.2% didn't know that the most frequent age group of testicular cancer, 82.9% didn't know high risk group, 63.8% weren't aware of TSE, 81.2% didn't have any idea about when and how to apply TSE, 38.8% thought that TSE would decrease the mortality rate from TC, and 40.5% supposed that if they found a mass in early phase the treatment of TC wouldn't be so bad. CONCLUSION:As a result it was determined that most of university students didn't have knowledge on TC and TSE. In the light of research, it would be proposed that health trainings could be planned and organized with the aim of improving the knowledge levels of university students on TC and TSE.