Women's attitudes toward screening mammography.

Although mammography has been proven an effective tool in screening asymptomatic women, it has been underused because of poor physician and patient compliance. At a university mammography clinic in Southern California, we administered questionnaires to 381 asymptomatic women to determine what women perceived to be incentives and deterrents to mammography. A factor analysis grouped the incentives into five factors, in decreasing significance: "doctor's recommendation," "personal experience," "media," "others' recommendation," and "breast symptoms." Similarly, we grouped the deterrents according to five factors, in decreasing significance: "cost," "fear of medical intervention," "unnecessary screening," "time demands," and "transportation difficulties." We compared the relative significance of these incentive and deterrent factors for demographics, aspects of the doctor-patient relationship, and individual characteristics. Younger, married women rated incentives, particularly "personal experience," higher and deterrents lower in general than older, unmarried women who had more concerns about "cost." However, all demographic groups rated "doctor's recommendation" as the highest incentive, and we found few differences among races or socioeconomic status for any factor. Women whose physicians had initiated the discussion of mammography viewed the doctor's recommendation as a greater incentive than women who had to initiate the discussion about mammography. Women under the care of gynecologists saw the doctor's recommendation as a greater incentive than women under any other specialists' care. Gynecologists initiated the discussion of mammography and recommended screening more often than other specialists. Women with the following individual characteristics identified more incentives to mammography: knew someone with breast or other cancer, estimated themselves to be at high risk for breast cancer, or had at least one previous mammogram.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Social support network of adolescents: relation to family alcohol abuse.

While there is considerable literature examining the relationship between the social functioning and alcohol abuse of adults, less is known about the social resources of adolescents in relation to their drinking or that of their parents. Various sources of social support were examined among 187 male and female adolescents from alcohol-abusing and nonabusing populations. Adolescent groups were divided into those whose family history was positive for alcohol abuse and those whose family history was negative for alcohol abuse. The data indicate that teens with alcoholic parents were less likely to identify their parents as a source of support than teens from nonabusing families. Alcohol-abusing teens appear to rely on friends more, and parents less, than demographically comparable nonabusing teens. Teens with abusing parents reported less parental support and more sibling support than teens from nonabusing families. The theoretical relevance of these findings as well as the implications for both abusing adolescents and nonabusing adolescent offspring of alcoholics are discussed.

Computer-assisted assessment of family physicians' knowledge about cancer screening guidelines.

The understanding and correct application of cancer screening guidelines is an important aspect of early cancer detection. Prior reports have indicated deficiencies in physicians' knowledge of the subject, promoting various educational activities aimed at primary care physicians. By using an interactive computer program to assess knowledge of the American Cancer Society cancer screening guidelines in a group of 306 family physicians, we found that knowledge of this subject continues to leave room for improvement.