Sun safety knowledge, practices and attitudes in rural Australian farmers : a cross-sectional study in Western New South Wales

Charmaine D'Souza; Nikitha Kramadhari; Elizabeth Skalkos; Tegan Dutton; Jannine Bailey

doi:10.1186/s12889-021-10777-x

Sun safety knowledge, practices and attitudes in rural Australian farmers : a cross-sectional study in Western New South Wales

Charmaine D'Souza
, Nikitha Kramadhari
, Elizabeth Skalkos
, Tegan Dutton
, Jannine Bailey

Western Sydney University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: Rates of skin cancer in Australia are amongst the highest in the world, with Western New South Wales (NSW) exhibiting very high prevalence. There is a large proportion of outdoor workers, including farmers, in Western NSW who have high levels of sun exposure and hence are at greater risk of developing skin cancer. Aims: To characterise the current sun safety practices of farmers in Western NSW and explore their knowledge, attitudes and perceived barriers towards sun safety and its implementation. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted using a self-directed questionnaire. Participants were recruited at field days held in Western NSW and through surveys distributed at general practices, local stores and online. Eligibility criteria were aged 18 years and over and currently working on a farm in the study region. Results: Of the 144 participants, 89 (61.8%) were male with a mean age of 49 years. Knowledge of sun safety was relatively high with most questions answered correctly by greater than 80% of participants. Risk of developing skin cancer was underestimated in 58 (40.3%) participants. Of all participants, 89 (62.2%) identified one or more barriers to practicing sun safety. The most common barrier was forgetfulness in 62 (43.4%) participants. The identification of barriers was significantly associated with reduced engagement of sun safety practices (p = 0.009). Conclusions: Knowledge of sun safety among farmers was high. There was, however, underestimation of risk of developing skin cancer. Addressing perceived barriers to implementing sun safety could improve sun safety practices in this cohort.

Original language	English
Article number	731
Number of pages	10
Journal	BMC Public Health
Volume	21
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10777-x
Publication status	Published - Dec 2021

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© 2021, The Author(s).

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© The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

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Cite this

@article{c219829f0636465086b7b8e0fe68fa72,

title = "Sun safety knowledge, practices and attitudes in rural Australian farmers : a cross-sectional study in Western New South Wales",

abstract = "Background: Rates of skin cancer in Australia are amongst the highest in the world, with Western New South Wales (NSW) exhibiting very high prevalence. There is a large proportion of outdoor workers, including farmers, in Western NSW who have high levels of sun exposure and hence are at greater risk of developing skin cancer. Aims: To characterise the current sun safety practices of farmers in Western NSW and explore their knowledge, attitudes and perceived barriers towards sun safety and its implementation. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted using a self-directed questionnaire. Participants were recruited at field days held in Western NSW and through surveys distributed at general practices, local stores and online. Eligibility criteria were aged 18 years and over and currently working on a farm in the study region. Results: Of the 144 participants, 89 (61.8\%) were male with a mean age of 49 years. Knowledge of sun safety was relatively high with most questions answered correctly by greater than 80\% of participants. Risk of developing skin cancer was underestimated in 58 (40.3\%) participants. Of all participants, 89 (62.2\%) identified one or more barriers to practicing sun safety. The most common barrier was forgetfulness in 62 (43.4\%) participants. The identification of barriers was significantly associated with reduced engagement of sun safety practices (p = 0.009). Conclusions: Knowledge of sun safety among farmers was high. There was, however, underestimation of risk of developing skin cancer. Addressing perceived barriers to implementing sun safety could improve sun safety practices in this cohort.",

author = "Charmaine D'Souza and Nikitha Kramadhari and Elizabeth Skalkos and Tegan Dutton and Jannine Bailey",

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year = "2021",

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doi = "10.1186/s12889-021-10777-x",

language = "English",

volume = "21",

journal = "BMC Public Health",

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AU - Kramadhari, Nikitha

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AU - Dutton, Tegan

AU - Bailey, Jannine

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N2 - Background: Rates of skin cancer in Australia are amongst the highest in the world, with Western New South Wales (NSW) exhibiting very high prevalence. There is a large proportion of outdoor workers, including farmers, in Western NSW who have high levels of sun exposure and hence are at greater risk of developing skin cancer. Aims: To characterise the current sun safety practices of farmers in Western NSW and explore their knowledge, attitudes and perceived barriers towards sun safety and its implementation. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted using a self-directed questionnaire. Participants were recruited at field days held in Western NSW and through surveys distributed at general practices, local stores and online. Eligibility criteria were aged 18 years and over and currently working on a farm in the study region. Results: Of the 144 participants, 89 (61.8%) were male with a mean age of 49 years. Knowledge of sun safety was relatively high with most questions answered correctly by greater than 80% of participants. Risk of developing skin cancer was underestimated in 58 (40.3%) participants. Of all participants, 89 (62.2%) identified one or more barriers to practicing sun safety. The most common barrier was forgetfulness in 62 (43.4%) participants. The identification of barriers was significantly associated with reduced engagement of sun safety practices (p = 0.009). Conclusions: Knowledge of sun safety among farmers was high. There was, however, underestimation of risk of developing skin cancer. Addressing perceived barriers to implementing sun safety could improve sun safety practices in this cohort.

AB - Background: Rates of skin cancer in Australia are amongst the highest in the world, with Western New South Wales (NSW) exhibiting very high prevalence. There is a large proportion of outdoor workers, including farmers, in Western NSW who have high levels of sun exposure and hence are at greater risk of developing skin cancer. Aims: To characterise the current sun safety practices of farmers in Western NSW and explore their knowledge, attitudes and perceived barriers towards sun safety and its implementation. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted using a self-directed questionnaire. Participants were recruited at field days held in Western NSW and through surveys distributed at general practices, local stores and online. Eligibility criteria were aged 18 years and over and currently working on a farm in the study region. Results: Of the 144 participants, 89 (61.8%) were male with a mean age of 49 years. Knowledge of sun safety was relatively high with most questions answered correctly by greater than 80% of participants. Risk of developing skin cancer was underestimated in 58 (40.3%) participants. Of all participants, 89 (62.2%) identified one or more barriers to practicing sun safety. The most common barrier was forgetfulness in 62 (43.4%) participants. The identification of barriers was significantly associated with reduced engagement of sun safety practices (p = 0.009). Conclusions: Knowledge of sun safety among farmers was high. There was, however, underestimation of risk of developing skin cancer. Addressing perceived barriers to implementing sun safety could improve sun safety practices in this cohort.

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Sun safety knowledge, practices and attitudes in rural Australian farmers : a cross-sectional study in Western New South Wales

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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UN SDGs

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