Partner-assisted skin-exam training improves skin exam practices in patients with melanoma

Source: Healio.com/dermatology, July 2015

Patients with melanoma who participated in a skin self-exam intervention with their partners continued to practice skin self-exams up to 12 months after their training, according to recent research.

“Patients engaged in sustained [skin self-exam] behaviors for up to 12 months following training with their partners,” Rob Turrisi, PhD, and colleagues wrote in JAMA Dermatology. “These findings support the notion that systematic [skin self-exam] training with partners is an empirically supported and sustainable approach to improve early detection of melanomas among high-risk individuals.”

Turrisi and colleagues enrolled 494 patients with stage 0 to stage IIB of melanoma and their partners in a randomized clinical trial. At baseline, there were no significant differences among participants in age, gender or education level. Participants were assessed at baseline and at 4-month and 12-month follow-up visits.

The participants were given one of three training interventions for skin self-exams outlining the ABCDE rule for evaluating moles: an in-person interview, a take-home workbook, or an interactive tablet. A fourth group received a treatment-as-usual intervention, which consisted of a doctor explaining the likelihood of developing another melanoma as well as general information on how to detect a melanoma.

The researchers found that there were no significant differences among skin self-exams by any of the three interventions. At 4-month follow-up, participants in the workbook, tablet, interview, and tablet groups examined mean 2.68, 2.66 and 2.53 body areas, respectively, compared with 0.98 body areas in the control group. At 12-month follow-up, participants examined mean 2.53 body areas in the workbook group, 2.59 areas in the interview group, and 2.34 areas in the tablet group compared with mean 1.82 body areas in the control group. – by Jeff Craven