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Resistance to screening studied

by Dick Peterson
Public Relations
Resistance to screening for colorectal cancer can be deadly, especially among the most vulnerable and most resistant—the elderly. 

Barbara Powe, Ph.D., R.N., wants to probe the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge enforcing this resistance among elderly residents in rural areas of South Carolina to find the most effective way to overcome it. 

She wants to save lives, and the federal Department of Veterans Affairs wants to help her.

Powe is the recipient of a Career Development Award from the VA to support her salary for two years contingent on the success of her research. The VA, she said, could use the data from her research to improve compliance with regular colorectal screening recommendations among veterans.

“There’s a fatalistic attitude among some elderly people,” Powe said. “They seem to think that if they have cancer, there’s little or nothing they can do about it. Coupled with other barriers such as cost, access and limited knowledge of colorectal cancer, they may see little point in submitting to a test that screens for it, she said.

Powe designed her research to determine the approach that obtains the best response, the most reduction in cancer fatalism the greatest increase in knowledge, and the greatest rate of screening.

Working in senior citizen centers in rural South Carolina areas, Powe presents four interventions to a number of randomly chosen elderly people, one intervention to others and, as a control group, the remainder receive the present standard of care. An intervention includes a visit to the center to show a video and present the information, plus a follow-up with mailed brochures and posters. A later interview is scheduled to collect data.

The VA is interested in colorectal cancer screening among the elderly, Powe said, because of the VA’s aging population and its desire to expand the scope of VA research beyond the basic and clinical investigation to issues of public health education, resistant attitudes and beliefs, and compliance.

Powe’s career development award providing salary support for her research allows her to seek research funding from the VA system. 

“I’m passionate about my research,” Powe said, adding that she would like to see her research affect people beyond South Carolina. “It’s so much more than just distributing knowledge. It’s reaching people in their beliefs, and it’s their beliefs that influence what they do.”