Gender Differences in Melanoma Awareness and Detection Practices Between Middle-aged and Older Men With Melanoma and Their Female Spouses

dents with diabetes had a history of a lower-extremity ulcer.Respondents with diabetes demonstrated a high rate of correct knowledge and attitudes regarding lower extremity skin care.Correct response rates exceeded 70% for all questions in these categories except for 2 items: twothirds of Latinos with diabetes felt they should soak their feet, and one-third agreed or strongly agreed that "It is too difficult to check my own feet" (Table 1).Correct practices did not fare as well as correct knowledge and attitudes.Only half of Latino respondents with diabetes reported that they inspected their feet every day for the last 7 days.Fewer than half reported daily inspection of their shoes.Only 60% stated that they washed their feet and dried between their toes daily during the previous week (Table 2).The number of years since diagnosis of diabetes was not correlated with any knowledge, attitude, or practice.Weak correlations existed between respondent characteristics, knowledge, attitudes, and lower-extremity skin-care practices.The Cronbach ␣ for the survey as a whole was 0.74 (knowledge, 0.73; attitudes, 0.75; and practices, 0.80).Intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.60 to 0.81.The survey took 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Comment.Latinoswithdiabetesmeritfocusedattentionwith respect to lower-extremity skin care, but busy clinicians do not have an easy-to-use tool to rapidly assess gaps in practices.Although knowledge and attitudes were found to be highly favorable in this study, the true clinical benefit can only be derived from consistent practices such as coupling daily foot inspections with ingrained daily habits.To our knowledge, this study was the first to survey the knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding lower-extremity skin care of Latinos with diabetes.It will hopefully serve as a basis to further explore effective strategies to improve skin ulcer preventioninthisandothergroupsathighriskoflower-extremity skin ulceration.The survey developed in this study is a fast, reliablemethodtoassesspatientpractices,highlightingwhere deficits exist and prompting discussion of ways to resolve barriers to good lower-extremity skin care.