Aims: With high cancer incidence in Australia, early diagnosis of cancer is a priority. The Cancer Council WA’s Find Cancer Early campaign seeks to increase awareness of common cancer symptoms to promote early diagnosis of common cancers (skin, bowel, breast, prostate, and lung). While the campaign shows promise, there may still be issues with surveillance, resulting from misconceptions about common cancer symptoms. This study aimed to explore regional and rural Western Australians’ beliefs about the most common cancer symptoms.
Methods: A convergent parallel mixed methods approach was employed. Computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) surveys completed with rural Western Australians (n = 1051) age 40 and over. Respondents were asked to list the most common cancer symptoms and interviewers coded responses according to the ten most common symptoms of the five most common cancers, with beliefs falling outside evidence-based symptoms left as open text and analysed with summative content analysis.
Results: Survey respondents averaged 61 years old (SD 11.89), with 53% identifying as a woman and 6% identifying as Aboriginal or a Torres Strait Islander. Respondents identified an average of 1.43 (SD 1.28; range 0-6) of the ten most common cancer symptoms without any prompts. An open-ended question about common cancer symptoms beliefs revealed that many consider feeling generally unwell, along with skin bruising/itching, dizziness, and lethargy to be indicative of cancer.
Conclusion: While current initiatives are running to promote early diagnosis of common cancers, there is scope to target public health campaigns. An initiative promoting awareness of one-off symptoms and dispelling myths about symptoms may harness potential for early diagnosis, particularly in regional and rural communities.