New research suggests that a little bit of fear could be helpful to skin care prevention.
The study, published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine, found fear and worry about skin cancer could prompt people to put on sunscreen, the University of Buffalo reported. The approach could be more effective than simply presenting people with data on the condition.
"Most health behavior studies don't account for the more visceral, emotional reactions that lead people to do risky behaviors, like eat junk food or ignore the protective benefits of sunscreen," said Marc Kiviniemi, lead researcher and assistant professor of community health and health behavior in the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions.
The study looked at data from the National Cancer Institute which encompassed 1,500 randomly selected participants who had no personal history of skin cancer. The subjects were asked about their personal sunscreen use and their perceived risk of getting skin cancer. Frequency of sunscreen use varied with 32 percent reporting they "never" used it and 14 percent reporting they "always" did. The researchers found increasing degrees of worry were linked to increased sunscreen use.
"Our research looked at the interplay of emotions and facts in decision making- that is, how do cognitive and affective risks jointly work to influence behavior?" Kiviniemi said. "The nature of their interrelation as an influence on behavior has not been examined until this study."
The researchers noted affective risk (fear of a health issue) and cognitive risk (the "informational component) are both known to influence people's health behavior.
"These findings show that clinicians might want to think more about feelings when encouraging people to use sunscreen," Kiviniemi said. "In addition to providing educational information about risk, encouraging people to consider how they feel about cancer and how worried they are about it might inspire preventive behaviors."
