Publications by authors named "M Asuncion Brotons"

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic led to a national lockdown and the interruption of all cancer preventive services, including cervical cancer screening. We aimed to assess the COVID-19 pandemic impact on opportunistic screening participation, abnormal cytology (ASCUS+) prevalence and screening interval in 2020 and 2021 within the Public Health System of Catalonia, Spain.

Methods: Individual data on cytology and HPV testing of women aged 25-65 from 2014 to 2021 were retrieved from the Information System for Primary Care Services (SISAP).

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Background: Self-care and preventive health strategies may trigger health inequities when individuals' cultural values and health beliefs are not fully understood and considered. In the case of cervical cancer (CC) screening programs immigrant women have shown lower attendance compared with native women, which increases the risk of late diagnosis and, consequently, a lower probability of survival. HPV self-sampling for CC screening has been recently added to the World Health Organization's (WHO) list of self-care interventions as a promising tool to reduce this disparity and improve screening coverage.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to assess beliefs and attitudes towards cancer prevention among people skeptical about vaccinations or who subscribe to conspiracy theories using an online survey method.
  • Data was gathered from various online platforms like ForoCoches, Reddit, and others between January and March 2022, involving nearly 1,500 respondents, including those unvaccinated against COVID-19.
  • Results indicated that while awareness of actual cancer causes was relatively high (63.6% median score), those in skeptical groups showed significantly lower awareness of both actual (54.5%) and mythical causes (25% for unvaccinated) compared to more informed groups, highlighting a substantial gap in cancer-related knowledge.
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(1) Background: Throughout their career, music therapists make decisions regarding the clinical population they choose to work with. Though such decisions can have broad implications on the professional development of the music therapist, not much is known about the reasons for making these decisions and whether they are affected by demographic or professional factors. (2) Methods: In this pilot study, we surveyed 439 music therapists from six countries (i.

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