SKIN-CANCER ATTITUDES - A CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISON

A questionnaire concerning attitudes towards skin cancer, sun exposure and general environmental issues was administered to 132 holiday-make rs on a beach in south-west England and (in translation) to 142 visito rs to another beach in north-west Italy. Following the Janis & Mann (1 977) classification of strategies for coping with decision conflicts, subscales were derived measuring tendencies to 'avoid' thinking about environment al issues, to 'bolster' prior attitudes (by playing down t he seriousness oft he risk of skin cancer while attending to the pleas ures of sunbathing), and to be 'vigilant' concerning risk information and the need for specific protective behaviour (e.g. sunscreen use). T he British scored higher than the Italians, and women higher than men, on vigilance, but there were no gender or nationality differences on the other subscales considered as a whole. Responses were also related to the covariates of age and self-reported vulnerability to sunburn. Those who showed less concern with environmental issues also tended to play down the risks of skin cancer and be less vigilant with regard t o self-protection. It is suggested that health promotion should addres s both cultural norms concerning exposure to the sun and people's intu itive notions about their relative personal vulnerability.