Awareness and practice of testicular self-examination among regular undergraduate male health sciences university students, Debre Tabor, Northwest Ethiopia

Background: Testicular cancer (TC) is the most common cancer among 15-35-year-old males and the incidence is increasing. This form of cancer is easily diagnosable by testicular self-examination (TSE) and is 96% curable if detected early. Objective: To assess awareness and practice of testicular self-examination among regular undergraduate Male Health Sciences University students, Debre Tabor, North West Ethiopia. Patients and Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study design was conducted. The study participants were stratified based on their year of study and selected by simple random sampling method. Pretested and structured self-administered questionnaire were used. The data were entered to EpiData version 3.1 statistical software and exported to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 22.0 for analysis. Both bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were performed to identify associated factors. P <0.05 with 95% confidence level was used to declare statistical significance. Results: A total of 225 respondents were participated with a response rate of 97.3%. Of the respondents, 53% had poor knowledge toward TC and 78% had poor practice toward TSE. The major reason 64.0% for poor practice of TSEs was inability to carry out the examination. Students in clinical year were more knowledgeable toward TSE with adjusted odds ratio (AOR = 5.27 [95% confidence interval (CI); 2.04, 13.66]) as compared to preclinical year and students in clinical year had good practice toward TSE with (AOR = 2.71 [95% CI; 1.10, 6.68]) than preclinical year of study. Conclusion: knowledge and practice of TSE among respondents were poor. The reason not to perform TSE, as revealed in the study was not caring the examination and lack of knowledge toward TSE. They are unaware of their risk for TC, which is the most common neoplasm in this age group. Providing regular health education toward TSE is important to improve the knowledge of.