ArticleJournal of public health (Oxford, England)2018
Do comorbidities influence help-seeking for cancer alarm symptoms? A population-based survey in England.
Article in Journal of public health (Oxford, England), 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Awareness level of cancer risk factors and warning signs among adults in Mansoura District, Egypt.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Comorbidity Burden in Lung Cancer and Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: Nationwide Database Results of Turkey.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2026Article
- Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and 'Find Cancer Early' campaign on cancer symptom knowledge in regional Western Australia.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Impact of Hypertension on Cancer Stage at Diagnosis Among French Women: The E3N Prospective Cohort.Cancer medicine · 2025Observational
- Are Calculated Immune Markers with or Without Comorbidities Good Predictors of Colorectal Cancer Survival? The Results of a Longitudinal Study.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Observational
- Sex differences in the impact of multimorbidity on long-term mortality for patients with colorectal cancer: a population registry-based cohort study.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- eHealth literacy and cancer screening attitudes among chronic patients.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Comorbidities, Socioeconomic Status, and Colorectal Cancer Diagnostic Route.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Longitudinal Trends of Comorbidities and Survival Among Kidney Cancer Patients in Asian Population.Cancer medicine · 2024Article
- Challenges in understanding inequities in help-seeking for possible cancer symptoms.BMC global and public health · 2024Review
- Article
- Trends of cancer incidence among Chinese older adults from 2005 to 2016: A log-linear regression and age-period-cohort analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Cancer symptom experience and help-seeking behaviour during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: a cross-sectional population survey.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Article
- Comorbidity and the diagnosis of symptomatic-but-as-yet-undiagnosed cancer.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2020Article
- Comorbidity prevalence among cancer patients: a population-based cohort study of four cancers.BMC cancer · 2020Article
- When simple hernia is not that simple: Treatment of concomitant pathology in acute care surgery, a case report.International journal of surgery case reports · 2020Article
- Comorbid chronic diseases and cancer diagnosis: disease-specific effects and underlying mechanisms.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2019Review
- Contrasting effects of comorbidities on emergency colon cancer diagnosis: a longitudinal data-linkage study in England.BMC health services research · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Background: We examined associations between different chronic morbidities and help-seeking for possible cancer symptoms. Methods: Postal survey of individuals aged >50 years in England. Participants could report prior morbidities in respect of 12 pre-defined conditions. Among patients experiencing possible cancer symptoms we examined associations between specific morbidities and self-reported help-seeking (i.e. contacted versus not contacted a GP) for each alarm symptom using regression analyses. Results: Among 2042 respondents (42% response rate), 936 (46%) recently experienced 1 of 14 possible cancer symptoms considered in our analysis. Of them, 80% reported one or more morbidities, most frequently hypertension/hypercholesterolemia (40%), osteomuscular (36%) and heart diseases (21%). After adjustment for socio-demographic characteristics, patients with hypertension/hypercholesterolemia were more likely to report help-seeking for possible cancer symptoms, such as unexplained cough (OR = 2.0; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1-3.5), pain (OR = 2.2; 95% CI 1.0-4.5) and abdominal bloating (OR = 2.3; 95% CI 1.1-4.8). Urinary morbidity was associated with increased help-seeking for abdominal bloating (OR = 5.4; 95% CI 1.2-23.7) or rectal bleeding (OR = 5.8; 95% CI 1.4-23.8). In contrast, heart problems reduced help-seeking for change in bowel habits (OR = 0.4; 95% CI 0.2-1.0). Conclusions: Comorbidities are common and may facilitate help-seeking for possible cancer symptoms, but associations vary for specific symptom-comorbidity pairs. The findings can contribute to the design of future cancer symptom awareness campaigns.
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