Video-based education boosts men’s skin health awareness

Video education tools aimed at men boost attendance at whole-body clinical skin examinations and enhances men’s awareness of skin health concerns, a recent study indicates.

Researchers with Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, conducted a randomized clinical trial of men ages 50 or older to assess attendance at and clinical outcomes of clinical skin exams in older male patients who were exposed to video-based behavioral interventions.

Study participants were randomized to receive either a video-based intervention (n=469) or brochures only (n=461; overall response rate, 37.1 percent). The participants were interviewed at baseline and seven months later.

Of those who received the video materials, 62.1 percent self-reported a clinical skin exam, and 59.4 percent consented for their doctor to provide medical information. Men who received the video education were more likely to self-report whole-body skin exam than those in the control group (35.3 versus 27.2 percent, respectively; P=0.01). Clinicians diagnosed two melanomas, 29 squamous cell carcinomas and 38 basal cell carcinomas. There was a higher proportion of malignant lesions in the intervention group than in the control group (60 versus 40 percent, respectively; P=0.03).

“Baseline attitudes, behaviors and skin cancer history were associated with higher odds of CSE (clinical skin exams) and skin cancer diagnosis,” study authors noted. “A video-based intervention may increase whole-body CSE and skin cancer diagnosis in older men.”

Study findings were published in the April issue of JAMA Dermatology.