ASSESSMENT OF SUN HEALTH AWARENESS LEVELS AMONG MEDICAL SCIENCES FEMALE STUDENTS AT AJMAN UNIVERSITY

Amna Alawad, Heba Alyassin, Arwa Alrefai, Ammar Abdulrahman Jairoun and Moyad Shahwan*

ABSTRACT

Background: The incidence of skin cancer has been increased significantly over the last 20 years and it has been shown the risk of someone to develop skin cancer is related to cumulative sun exposure over a lifetime This highlights the need to find out and understand of medical students’ knowledge, and practice regarding sun protection, hence devising appropriate educational interventions to bridge the gap between knowledge and practice. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate knowledge and practice towards sun protection among medical students. Materials and methods: In this study, 298 students participated in the questionnaire survey on students’ knowledge and practice toward sun protection. Independent t-test and ANOVA were used to analyze questionnaire and to determine the differences in participants’ responses in term of demographic. Results: The results showed that 8.1% (n = 24) of the respondents had good Knowledge and practice towards sun protection, 44.6% of the studied subjects (n = 133) had fair Knowledge and practice while 47.3% (n = 141) had poor Knowledge and practice. Significant differences in the knowledge and practice score of students with regard to the level of parent’s education, skin tones and incidence of sunburns (P=0.017), (P=0.003), (P=0.005) respectively. On the other hand no significant association was reported in the knowledge and practice score of the respondents with regards to their age and family history of skin cancer (P= 0.153), (P= 0.932) respectively. Conclusion: The existing results will be used in developing a well planned program and clear polices to increase the level of awareness regarding the good practice towards sun protection such as wearing protective clothing and routinely using sun screen. Also it's important to organize educational campaigns to address the sun hazards that will help to raise awareness, knowledge and practice medical students towards sun protection

Keywords: Skin, Cancer, Sun Screen, skin, students, health.