Implementation of an Educational Intervention for Gastric Cancer Awareness in the General Population in CELAC and Europe: A Strategy Proposed by the LEGACy Consortium.

Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) has a poor prognosis. The LEGACy consortium has been established to enhance GC outcomes though improved primary and secondary prevention strategies. We performed an educational intervention study using an online module to disseminate knowledge about GC risk factors and symptoms to the general population. Participants were recruited through various media channels and were exposed to an online questionnaire to assess their knowledge, before and after the educational intervention. The educational intervention included an informative brochure and a short video providing essential information about GC. Primary outcome was to evaluate the overall knowledge (global score) before and after the intervention. A total of 1034 participants were evaluated before the intervention. Of those, 866 also completed the short-term and 362 the long-term questionnaire after the intervention, respectively. On a scale of 0 to 17, the baseline global score mean was 9.4 (3.2). Results showed an increase in the average global knowledge score by 1.80 (95% CI: 1.63-1.96, p < 0.001) and 1.81 (95% CI: 1.65-1.96, p < 0.001) points after completing the short and long-term questionnaires compared to the baseline respectively for all individual questions (p < 0.05). This interventional study showed significantly improved knowledge in most domains on GC risk factors, signs, and symptoms which could be a useful strategy for promoting cancer prevention. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04019808.