ABSTRACT
Although nowadays people are very much concerned when it comes to cancer, still they are not aware about the process and advantages of early detection. Testicular cancer is the most common cancer among males in the age group 18-50 years. Still people are not aware of self-examination of scrotum and testicular self-examination (TSE). Knowledge deficits and sociocultural norms contribute towards increased incidence of testicular pathologies. This study was aimed to assess knowledge and attitude of young male medical students regarding self-examination of scrotum/testis and various testicular pathologies.METHODSA cross sectional study was conducted in a rural tertiary care hospital attached to medical college. After getting approval from institutional ethics committee, 149 medical students were included in the study. A self-administered validated online questionnaire was made for pre-test and post-test consisting of 10 questions. The students were educated after pre-test and intervention was done in post-test. The data was collected through Google forms and data analysis was done using chi square test.RESULTSIn pre-test it was revealed that 39.5% of subjects didn’t have knowledge about self-examination of scrotum or testicles. Amongst 60.5% who knew about it, only 26.5% knew the procedure for performing the self-examination, and 24% knew the frequency for self-examination. The main barrier for 22.4% people was social and mental hindrance. In post-test, it revealed that still 11.41% didn’t have clear idea about procedure of self-examination and still after knowing all the advantages 12.08% people had social or mental hindrance.CONCLUSIONSThis study concluded health care professionals lack the necessary knowledge about TSE. Still the main problem lies in their perspective and attitude towards TSE as even after educating them regarding TSE and various testicular pathologies and its early detection and its advantages, 12.08% of students had social or mental hindrance. This study highlighted the various hindrances the educated, young, health care students have, where the real problem lies, and brings out the most important hindrance which is mental and social inhibition.