PURPOSE: We explored whether African-American (AA) primary care physicians (PCPs) have different prostate cancer screening practices compared to non-AA PCPs, after adjustment for potential confounding factors such as the proportion of AA patients in PCP practices.
METHODS: We used SAS/SUDAAN to compare weighted responses from AA PCPs (n = 604) with those from non-AA PCPs (n = 647) in the 2007-2008 National Survey of Primary Care Physician Practices Regarding Prostate Cancer Screening. We used multivariate logistic regression to calculate the weighted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI).
RESULTS: We found that AA PCPs had higher odds of working in practices with above-the-median (≥ 21%) proportions of AA male patients (OR, 9.02; 95% CI: 5.85-13.91). A higher proportion of AA PCPs (53.5%; 95% CI: 49.5-57.4) reported an above-the-median proportion (≥ 91%) of PSA testing during health maintenance exams as compared to non-AA PCPs (39.4%; 95% CI: 35.5-43.4; P < 0.0002). After adjusting for the proportion of AA patients and other factors, we found that AA PCPs had higher odds of using PSA tests to screen men (OR, 1.74; 95% CI: 1.11-2.73).
CONCLUSION: This study quantifies the magnitude of the differences reported in previous focus group studies. Our results may be helpful in hypothesis generation and in planning future research studies.
Written by:
Richards TB, Rim SH, Hall IJ, Richardson LC, Ross LE. Are you the author?
Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Reference: Int J Gen Med. 2012;5:775-80.
doi: 10.2147/IJGM.S36028
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 23049271
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