News
19 April 2024 4min read

Gender norms, myths and misconceptions in cancer care

In this interview, Dr Carlos Barrios, Director of the Oncology Research Unit at Hospital São Lucas in Brazil, dives into some of the factors that can influence a person's attitude to care - such as gender norms, myths and misconceptions.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • This interview with Dr Carlos Barrios looks at how gender norms and societal roles can influence attitudes towards cancer care, with stereotypes about masculinity potentially leading to delays in men seeking medical help and women prioritising others' health over their own.
  • Stigma and fear around cancer can lead to late medical intervention, highlighting the need for better information and education to promote early diagnosis and treatment.
  • Addressing misperceptions including treatment fears and side effects is crucial in patient care, for example the need to have open discussions about concerns like fertility from the onset of treatment, ensuring patients are informed and involved in decision-making.

 

Gender norms can shape how people think about cancer and how they take care of their health.  

In many cultures, the stereotype that men should be stoic and avoid showing weakness may lead to delays in seeking medical help when symptoms of cancer arise. On the other hand, women are often expected to prioritise the health of others over their own, leading them to neglect symptoms or delay screenings. 

Moreover, these gender norms intersect with prevalent myths and misinformation about cancer, further complicating efforts to promote prevention, early detection, and treatment. 

In this interview, Dr Carlos Barrios, Director of the Oncology Research Unit at Hospital São Lucas, in Porto Alegre, Brazil shares his views on some of the factors that can influence how a person takes care of their health and approaches cancer treatment. 

Gender norms are one of the barriers that prevent people from accessing health services even when they're available. What exactly are gender norms?

They are norms that define the behaviour of men and women in society. And obviously this is a changing field. What could have been considered adequate or inadequate, 100 or 200 years ago has been evolving. So particularly when you look at the evolving roles and behaviours of women, gender norms represent one of the most significant societal changes we have faced in the past 50 years.

And how does that affect attitudes towards cancer diagnosis?

As a person facing cancer, both women and men have individual reactions and perspectives on diagnosis, on treatment, and on outcomes. However, if you look at it from a societal point of view, the impact that a cancer diagnosis has, is different depending on whether the patient is a woman or a man because their roles in society are different and this influences the attitudes towards a cancer diagnosis. The impact on children, for instance, is different. Men tend to be the primary breadwinner, but in many societies, women still take care of their kids more than men do. They are responsible for their initial years and for their education. They are responsible for a number of aspects that men often do not get involved in, as a gender norm. 

What particular challenges do you see with male gender norms?

There are some people who look at a problem like cancer and say: I need to deal with this. And there are people who deny the disease. In general, if you talk about men and women, I think that men are more likely to choose denial. Trying to be tougher, trying to essentially not be affected by this or having more difficulties in showing their emotions. Men tend to participate less in prevention campaigns than women. I think that the evolving gender norms will eventually make men much more amenable for the prevention, the early diagnosis and treatment of different male cancers.

In many parts of the world, widespread stigma surrounds a cancer diagnosis. What are the consequences and what can be done?

Unfortunately, stigma often leads individuals both women and men to delay seeking medical help until advanced stages when the cancer is harder to treat. I think that we have done a significant job in dealing with this at least in certain aspects. We speak about cancer much more freely than we did 20, 30 years ago. But we definitely need to work on two aspects. One is information, that is conveying data that helps people change their preconceived and often wrong ideas. And the other is education to actually help people change their behaviour.

Stigma is also related to fear. It is important to make people aware that the early diagnosis is absolutely critical and can certainly make some tumour types much easier to treat. We need to inform. We need to educate. We need to guarantee access to diagnosis and treatment for patients after screening. 

There was a law passed in Brazil that actually established that once a diagnosis is made,  treatment needs to start in less than 60 days.

Do you find that fear of the treatment is also a barrier for people to seek or proceed with medical care? 

I see every single day in my work that patients are obviously scared with the diagnosis. They are scared about the concept and the ideas they have about chemotherapy. But current treatments are reasonably tolerated and once they have the first treatment, the first cycle of treatment, everything changes because they realise that they can actually live with that situation.

How do you bring up potential side effects with patients?

In a young patient with breast cancer or testicular cancer, for example, the issue of fertility is something we need to start talking about from the beginning. It's difficult because at that point they are thinking about their lives, there is the fear of dying. So having children five to 10 years later is a difficult thought to put on the table at that point. But we have to do it. 

Today there are a number of alternatives that actually help. It is critical for us to inform the patient at the beginning of the treatment. And this is the type of thing that we need to do in conjunction. It's not just telling the patient this is the treatment you have to do. These are the alternatives you have and the consequences or possible consequences. The patient has to have a voice and needs to participate in the decision.

A lot of misinformation about health and cancer is shared via social media.  How do you feel about patients conducting research on social media?

I definitely understand that a patient or their family want to look for more information. Right after the diagnosis they often think "That cannot be true. Let's try something else. Let's look somewhere". We need to recognise that people want to look for alternatives, magical alternatives, in order to save themselves from what's going to happen. It's only natural.

As medical professionals we need to accompany the patients and make sure they access correct information and do not believe misleading or wrong promises. 

Last update

Tuesday 23 April 2024

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