Effects of type of information in health education brochures upon performance on an experimental melanoma detection task

Abstract

Improved health education has the potential to increase the proportion of people with early melanoma presenting to doctors. This study was designed to evaluate experimentally the effects of various types and amounts of information on early melanoma detection. One hundred and fifty-one subjects assessed 157 skin lesions on 34 separate photographs of areas of skin and marked those for which they would seek medical attention if they found it on their skin. They were then provided with one of five different experimental brochures and using the information in the brochure repeated the lesion-marking task. An overall increase in sensitivity was found. Specificity and predictive value both were bet..