Abstract:

Background; Prostate cancer is so common to anecdotally be considered a part of the aging Process. It is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men while in Africa, men suffer disproportionately from Prostate cancer compared to other parts of the world. It is still quite difficult to accurately describe the burden of Prostate cancer in Africa due to poor cancer registration system. In Tanzania, incidence of prostate cancer is among the highest recorded in Africa, it’s also the most common cancer among men aged 50 years and above in Tanzania

Aim; Assessment knowledge, perceived risks and utilization of prostate cancer screening services among Men over Forty Years in the Urban Community of Nyamagana District, Tanzania.

Methodology; A community-based cross-section descriptive study that will be conducted among male residents of the urban setting of Nyamagana District. A total of 300 consented participants will be provided with standard questionnaires that will require them to respond to a set of questions pertaining the research topic. Data will be analyzed and computed using SPSS software version 20. Ethical clearance will be sought from the Joint CUHAS/BMC Research and ethics committee.

Results; A total of 300 men with a median age of 56 years participated. Three quarters 275 (75%) had poor knowledge about prostate cancer, 272 (90.7%) were unaware of prostate cancer screening. 25.3% perceived the risk of prostate cancer to be nil. There was no association between good knowledge of prostate cancer and any of the respondents’ socio-demographic variables, p values were 0.851 and 0.302 respectively.

Conclusion; The level of knowledge and awareness prostate cancer and its screening services is alarmingly low, with poor perceived risk. There is therefore a need to improve the accessibility to information and services regarding prostate cancer screening in order to halt the rising burden of the disease across the country.