TIME PERSPECTIVE AND TRAIT ANXIETY AS FACTORS IN THE DECISION TO UTILIZE FREE BREAST CANCER SCREENING CLINICS

Oncological screening that occurs prior to evidence of breast cancer symptoms is considered the optimal preventive medical practice. However, despite concerted education efforts, the risk for breast cancer remains high, due to the continued resistance to preventive cancer screening (Federici, Guarino, & Serantoni, 2012). According to the literature (Shaw et al., 2008; Ginossar, 2016), the theoretical framework Cognitive-Social Health Information Processing-C-SHIP (Miller, et al., 2001) could help to explain how individuals decide to engage in a health behaviour after determining: cancer-relevant encodings and self-construals, emotions’ regulation, beliefs, expectancies, personality and cognitive traits and social skills. This study examines Future Orientation and Trait Anxiety in Italian in a sample of Italian women (N=300; age: mean= 39.4; s.d.=6.7) who did (N=150) and did not (N=150) engage in free breast cancer screening. None of the sample was symptomatic. Stanford Time Perspective Inventory-STPI SF (D’Alessio, Guarino, De Pascalis, Zimbardo, 2003) and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-STAI Y (Spielberger, 1989; Pedrabissi & Santinello, 1998) were administered as well as a general demographic inventory. Correlational analyses were conducted between Time Perspective and Trait Anxiety on the total sample and then differentiated by group. Next, 2 between-group comparisons were performed: first, the screening and non-screening groups were compared on Future Time Orientation and Trait Anxiety; then, the age was added as a covariate. The results, inter alia, show that the participant group appeared to be more future-oriented but these differences were attenuated as a function of age; moreover, breast cancer screening participants reported higher levels of trait anxiety than the non-participants. These results may be useful to health professionals seeking ways to increase mammography participation.