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Pediatrician counseling rates regarding sun protection remain low

BALTIMORE — Physician counseling about sun protection and indoor tanning among children and adolescents needs to be further improved, according to survey findings reported at the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting.

“Childhood and adolescent exposure to ultraviolet radiation through sunlight and artificial sources (such as indoor tanning) raises skin cancer risk,” Sophie J. Balk, MD, attending pediatrician at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, told Infectious Diseases in Children. “In 2014, we conducted an AAP Periodic Survey to ask pediatricians about practices, opinions and barriers to counseling on skin cancer prevention, and compared those responses with our 2002 survey.”

Sophie J. Balk

The 2014 survey, which included 505 participants, had questions on indoor tanning, and only pediatricians who provided primary care were included in the analysis. There were 673 participants in the earlier survey, and the investigators used chi-square tests for bivariate analysis of the responses across survey years.

“More pediatricians in 2014 (approximately 50%) than in 2002 (approximately 40%) reported discussing sun protection with at least 75% of their patients in all [five] surveyed age groups (P < .001 for each),” Balk said. “Half or fewer respondents ever discussed indoor tanning with teens.”

Overall, only 12% of pediatricians reported “regularly” providing their patients with counseling on avoiding indoor tanning, while 29% disclosed they “occasionally” did. Seventy percent of clinicians were unaware if their state had laws prohibiting minors from accessing indoor tanning.

“Although ranked as important/very important by most respondents (69% in 2014; 73% in 2002), skin cancer prevention was ranked lower than other preventive topics,” Balk said. She and her colleagues reported that 47% of pediatricians ranked indoor tanning as a “very important/important” preventive care topic in the 2014 survey.

“The most common barrier to this counseling was lack of time, and a significantly larger percentage of respondents named this barrier in 2014 compared to 2002,” Balk said. “As skin cancer is a major public health problem and clinician counseling is believed to improve patients’ skin cancer prevention behaviors, creative solutions are needed to augment pediatricians’ counseling practices.” – by Alaina Tedesco 

Reference:

Balk SJ, et al. Abstract 1494.371. Presented at: Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting; April 30-May 3, 2016; Baltimore.

Disclosure: Balk reports no relevant financial disclosures.