Indoor Tanning Patterns Help Doctor’s Target Prevention
December 19th, 2007 Posted by: Dr. Cox
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Evidence that indoor tanning poses a serious skin cancer risk is rising. A new study helps doctors identify whoâs doing the tanning and why so they can better target prevention messages. The study revealed that when it comes to indoor tanning, one size does not fit all.
Joel Hillhouse, Ph.D., at the East Tennessee State University, Johnson City and his colleagues studied the indoor tanning behaviors of 168 young women between January 2006 and April 2006. The average age of the participants was 20 and they all attended a southeastern university. They were all asked to fill out questionnaires to determine behavioral patterns, intentions, attitudes and perceptions abut indoor tanning. It also measured indoor tanning norms, perceived subjective norms and indoor tanning dependence and predictors.
4 types of tanners were identified. The first was special event tanners. They made up 53.6% of the group and they tanned numerous times over a short period. They also scored lowest on measures of attitudes, social norms and tanning dependence
A second group was classified as regular year round tanners (11.9%) They tanned weekly or bi-weekly, started the earliest, tanned at the highest levels and scored highest on the attitudes, social norms and tanning dependence measures.
6% fell into a group called spontaneous or âmoodâ tanners. This groupâs habits were very similar to the special event tanners except that they were strongly influenced by mood.
And the fourth group was made up of âmixedâ tanners (28.6%). This group combined behavior or the regular and event tanning types.
Hillhouse and the other authors of the study concluded that by knowing how to classify tanning salon users, they would be able to get their Men’s health care messages out more efficiently thereby lowering the risk for skin cancer.
SOURCE: JAMA Archives of Dermatology, December 2007