• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.2549-2554
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• 2016

Background: Early detection remains the cornerstone of breast cancer control in terms of outcome and survival. Thus far the only breast cancer screening method proven effective is mammography. The awareness of female health care workers (HCW) about breast cancer prevention is of vital importance, as their beliefs and behavior may have a major impact on other women. This study was designed to assess mammography screening uptake among female healthcare workers at primary healthcare centers, and to identify the primary motivators and barriers that affect uptake results. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study design was used to assess mammography screening by 299 female healthcare workers who completed a self-administered questionnaire that assessed demographics, screening uptake, motivators and barriers. Results: The mean age was 46 years (within age of risk). The majority (95.1%) demonstrated adequate knowledge about breast cancer and mammography screening and 50% of the participants reported having at least one mammogram; however only 21% of them had regularly scheduled mammograms. The most frequent reported motivator was the perceived benefit that early detection of breast cancer is important for its management (89.6%), followed by the belief that mammography can detect breast cancer before its symptoms appear (84.4%). On the other hand, the most frequent barrier reported was being busy (46.7%), followed by the lack of perceived susceptibility (41.5%). Conclusions: Mammography screening was found to be sub-optimal in a population of HCW's with 50 % stating that they received a mammogram at least once, and a minority reported regular screening. There is a pressing need for educational programs aimed at removing the barriers that limit compliance with recommendations for mammography screening, and to emphasize the importance of early detection in breast cancer treatment. Ensuring the availability and accessibility of screening services, particularly for healthcare workers within their work settings are other important factors that would improve the acceptance and compliance for mammography screening programs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.11
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• pp.4885-4892
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• 2016

Background: Chinese and Korean Americans have lower colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates than other racial/ ethnic groups, which may be explained by a low level of CRC knowledge and a high level of misconceptions. This study explores the role of knowledge in CRC screening among these groups. Methods: Chinese (N=59) and Korean (N=61) Americans older than 50 were recruited from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area. They completed a detailed survey and participated in focus groups to discuss their knowledge on CRC and CRC screening. Seventeen physicians, community leaders, and patient navigators participated in key informant interviews. Using a mixed methods approach, data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results: Participants lacked knowledge about CRC and CRC screening. More than half did not know that screening begins at age 50 and there are several types of tests available. More than 30% thought CRC screening was not necessary if there were no symptoms or there was nothing they could do to prevent CRC. Focus group findings suggested understanding about CRC was limited by an inadequate source of linguistically and culturally relevant health information. For example, many participants considered CRC a western condition mainly caused by unhealthy diet. This led to under-estimations about their susceptibility to CRC. Knowledge was positively associated with self-reported screening. Participants who had higher knowledge scores were more likely to report ever having had a colonoscopy and confidence in ability to have CRC screening. Conclusions: Mixed-methods analysis provides multi-faceted perspectives on CRC knowledge and its influence on screening. Study findings can help inform interventions to increase CRC screening among Chinese and Korean Americans.

• Journal of the korean academy of Pediatric Dentistry
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.248-256
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• 2020

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of national dental screening for children in Korea in the aspects of prevention of dental caries, the number of treatments related to dental caries, and cost of dental care. The study used the national cohort data on children health screening provided by National Health Insurance Service, and analyzed 32,937 1st dental screening, 22,608 2nd dental screening, 13,708 3rd dental screening, and 241,043 cases from the dental care of 27,944 children born in year 2008 and 2009. The decayed-filled teeth index and decayed-filled person rate, calculated from the results of the 2nd and 3rd dental screening, decreased as the number of preceding dental screening increased. Glass ionomer and amalgam restoration, pulp treatment of primary teeth and extraction of primary canine and molar were shown to decrease as the number of examined dental screening increased, and the total cost of dental care covered by national health insurance also decreased as the number of dental screening increased. In conclusion, national dental screening for children is an efficient and economical oral health care method that prevents dental caries and lowers the possibility of dental caries related treatment, thereby reducing cost of dental care.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.305-310
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• 2014

This study was attempted to identify the factors influencing on cervical cancer screening acceptance using Pap smear in women over 20 years old. The subjects of this study were 192 screening acceptance group who visited health examination center. Data were collected by interview and self-administered questionnaire from April 22 through May 24, 2013. The results of this study as follows. Firstly, the response rate(45.8%) of non-screening acceptance group who is not a religion was significantly higher than the response rate(32.3%) of screening acceptance group($X^2=4.82$, p<.05). Secondly, the response rate(61.5%) of non-screening acceptance group who performed breast-feeding was significantly higher than the response rate(46.9%) of screening acceptance group($X^2=0.61$, p<.05). Thirdly, screening acceptance group who performed other screening was significantly higher 4.62 times than non-screening acceptance group(95% Cl=1.15-9.84, P=0.006). Based on the results of this study, it necessary to provide more cervical cancer screening information which can change the negative attitude among the public toward cancer screening acceptance using Pap smear.

• Yonsei Medical Journal
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• v.59 no.9
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• pp.1026-1033
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• 2018

Purpose: Consistent evidence indicates that cervical and breast cancer screening rates are low among socioeconomically deprived women. This study aimed to assess trends in cervical and breast cancer screening rates and to analyze socioeconomic inequalities among Korean women from 2005 to 2015. Materials and Methods: Data from the Korean National Cancer Screening Survey, an annual nationwide cross-sectional survey, were utilized. A total of 19910 women were finally included for analysis. Inequalities in education and household income status were estimated by slope index of inequality (SII) and relative index of inequality (RII), along with calculation of annual percent changes (APCs), to show trends in cancer screening rates. Results: Cervical and breast cancer screening rates increased from 54.8% in 2005 to 65.6% in 2015 and from 37.6% in 2005 to 61.2% in 2015, respectively. APCs in breast cancer screening rates were significant among women with higher levels of household income and education status. Inequalities by household income in cervical cancer screening uptake were observed with a pooled SII estimate of 10.6% (95% CI: 8.1 to 13.2) and RII of 1.4 (95% CI: 1.3 to 1.6). Income inequalities in breast cancer screening were shown to gradually increase over time with a pooled SII of 5.9% (95% CI: 2.9 to 9.0) and RII of 1.2 (95% CI: 0.9 to 1.3). Educational inequalities appeared to diminish over the study period for both cervical and breast cancer screening. Conclusion: Our study identified significant inequalities among socioeconomically deprived women in cervical and breast cancer screening in Korea. Especially, income-related inequalities were greater than education-related inequalities, and these were constant from 2005 to 2015 for both cervical and breast cancer screening.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.144-151
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• 2002

Consider the problem of estimating the confidence interval of defect rate of a specified population through a screening test. Relationship between defect rate of the population and sensitivity and specificity of the screening test is discussed. More general statistical problem is introduced with the assumption of unknown imperfect specificity. An improved version of Hogan & Gladden(1978)'s estimator is proposed and discussed. Simulation studies are performed to compare the efficiency of the proposed estimator with current estimators.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.419-428
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• 2005

The screening test is increasingly being used for predicting future disease in the person screened and has raised concerns about reliability of the result of its procedure. We propose an improved estimator of the confidence interval for the positive predictive value(PPV) in screening test by simply taking inverse sinh transformation comparing to Gastwirth(1987) estimator and show its efficiency through the simulation study.

• Health Policy and Management
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.157-166
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• 2017

Background: Women with family history of breast cancer are more likely to be worried about having cancer and participate in breast cancer screening. However, few studies have examined relationship between family history, cancer worries, and participating in breast cancer screening in Korea. This study is to identify relationship between family history, cancer worries, and participating in breast cancer screening among women with and without family history of cancer. Methods: Respondents were 2,364 women who based on the 2013 Korean National Cancer Screening Survey which is done by National Cancer Center in Korea. Chi-square tests were performed to determine differences of cancer worries, undergoing of breast cancer screening and methods such as mammogram and ultrasonogram with and without cancer family history. Univariate and multiple logistic regression were performed to identify if family history and cancer worries are related factors on participating in breast cancer screening and methods. Stratified analysis was performed to confirm the effect of ultrasonogram on the dense breast by age. Results: Women with cancer family history frequently checked condition for conscious of having cancer (p=0.0299) and had highly perception of risk about having cancer in the future ($p{\leq}0.0001$). Women aged 30-49 did not perform significantly more ultrasonogram than women aged over 50 years old. Checking condition (moderate odds ratio [OR], 1.38; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.20-2.08; frequently OR, 1.58; 95% CI, 1.08-1.76) and perception of risk (moderate OR, 3.12; 95% CI, 1.06-7.06; high OR, 2.74; 95% CI, 1.20-8.08) were related to participate in mammogram and ultrasonogram. A positive family history was related to 1.35 higher odds of performing only breast ultrasonogram (95% CI, 1.04-1.75). Conclusion: This study requires national education and publicity to reduce the unnecessary cost of screening, to be possible cost effective screening and to encourage women to receive more mammogram, especially women aged over 50 years old and with socioeconomic factors related to opportunistic screening.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7657-7661
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• 2013

Background: This study concerns uptake and results of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening of government servant as part of the Health Screening Program that was conducted in Brunei Darussalam in 2009. Materials and Methods: Government servants above the age of 40 or with family history of CRC were screened with a single fecal occult blood test (FIT, immunohistochemistry). Among 11,576 eligible subjects, 7,360 (66.9%) returned their specimen. Subjects with positive family history of CRC (n=329) or polyps (n=135) were advised to attend clinics to arrange screening. All the subjects with positive FIT (n=142, 1.9%) were referred to the endoscopy unit for counselling for screening colonoscopy. Results: Overall only 17.7% of eligible subjects attended for screening; 54.9% (n=79/142) of positive FIT, 8.8% (n=29/329) of positive family history of CRC and none with history of polyps (n=0/135). Of these, only 54 patients (50.5%) agreed for colonoscopy, 52 (48.6%) declined as they were asymptomatic, and one was not offered (0.9%) due to his very young age. On screening colonoscopy, 12.9% (n=7) had advanced lesions including a sigmoid carcinoma in situ and six advanced polyps. The other findings included non advanced polyps (n=21), diverticular (n=11) and hemorrhoids (n=26). One patient who missed his screening colonoscopy appointment re-presented two years later and was diagnosed with advanced right sided CRC. All the advanced lesions were detected in patients with positive FIT, giving a yield of 20.5% for advanced lesions including cancers in the 5.1% FIT positive subjects. Conclusions: Our study showed screening for CRC even with a single FIT was effective. However, the uptake rate was poor with just over half of the patients agreeing to screening colonoscopy. Measures to increase public awareness are important. Since one limitation of our study was the relatively small sample size, larger studies should be conduced in future.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.3763-3767
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• 2016

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among females across the world. It is a preventable cancer and early detection is very feasible. This study aimed to identify which women characteristics are potentially associated with and may have an important in uence on the uptake of cervical cancer screening in Kurdish women living in the west of Iran.. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in late 2014. A random sample of women aged 40 years and above without history of cervical cancer and identi ed as Kurdish background were selected and interviewed by two trained interviewers. Information about sociodemographic and reproductive factors, history of diseases, and cervical screening was collected using a questionnaire and women who had undergone a hysterectomy were excluded. Univariate analyses were used to describe the general characteristics of the study population. Multivariable logistic regression models with self-reported screening history were used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) with 95% con dence intervals (CI). Signi cance was considered at the 5% level. Results: A total of 561 women were included in this study (mean age $43.6{\pm}5.17$ years) participation in cervical screening at least once was about 32%. Cervical screening uptake percentage was signi cantly lower among people over 60 years of age (adjusted OR= 0.26, 95% CI: 0.11-0.64), and those who were illiterate (OR= 0.41 95% CI: 0.23-0.73) and post-menopausal (OR= 0.56, 95% CI: 0.35-0.91). Women with ${\leq}1$ child were less likely to report a Pap test (adjusted OR=0.43 95%CI: 0.13-1.37) Cervical screening uptake was higher among women with health insurance (OR= 2.31, 95% CI: 1.50-3.56). Conclusions: Cervical screening participation in this study was low compared to other studies in developed countries. The screening uptake was different based on age, education, parity, insurance coverage and menopausal status. It is recommended to target these groups of women in cervical screening program.