The role of disgust as an emotional barrier to colorectal cancer screening participation: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Open accessAbstract
Objective Worldwide colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates are suboptimal. This systematic review and meta-analysis examine the role of disgust in CRC screening avoidance.Design A systematic literature search was conducted. In all, 46 studies were included in the review. Among these, 16 studies were compared with a meta-analytical approach in order to 1) estimate the effect size of state disgust on screening intention and attendance; 2) examine whether methodological characteristics moderate the effect of state disgust on screening behaviour; 3) estimate the effect sizes of trait disgust and type of exam kit on state disgust.Results In the reviewed studies, state disgust was often associated with CRC screening and especially with CRC screening avoidance. The meta-analysis confirmed low-to-moderate negative effects of state disgust on screening intention and attendance. Population sampling strategy was the only significant moderator of the effect of state disgust on screening attendance, i.e. studies that used convenience (versus random/representative) samples found a significantly lower effect size. Trait disgust and type of exam kit exerted a large and a moderate-to-large positive effect, respectively, on state disgust.Conclusions Disgust can boost CRC screening avoidance. Further studies and interventions must be designed to help patients in overcoming this emotional barrier.
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Disgust related to handling stool can negatively influence completion of the CRC stool test at home.
“Anticipated dislike or discomfort [27,28] and disgust related to handling stool [27,29] can negatively influence completion of the CRC stool test at home.”
From Improving cancer screening uptake: A behavioural and cultural insights perspective and rapid review (2026) · cites this paper as [29]
The indexed passages are repository-page metadata and PDF access information, not the paper’s text; they contain no findings about stool handling or completion of at-home CRC tests. Searches for those terms and for fecal immunochemical test participation returned no relevant passage, so the claim cannot be checked against our copy. (LLM, conf=0.75)
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“Applying psychological knowledge about source credibility (e.g. Hovland & Weiss, 1951; Petty et al., 1981) might support the design of specific one-to-one communication strategies.”
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“…attendance had been completely mediated by screening intention, we should have found a smaller effect size for behaviour and a larger effect size for screening intention, because medium-to-large changes in intentions usually lead to small-to-medium variations in actions (Sheeran & Webb, 2016).”
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Improving cancer screening uptake: A behavioural and cultural insights perspective and rapid review
Palsola, M., Likki, T., Snijders, V., Corbex, M., Lasierra, L., & Curtis, B. (2026) · Glasnik javnog zdravlja · doi:10.5937/serbjph2601086p
- Authors
- Scaglioni, G., Guidetti, M., & Cavazza, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Parma (IT)
- University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Scaglioni, Giulia
- Venue
- Psychology & Health
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2021-08-25
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 389-408
- ISSN
- 0887-0446 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-8321
- OpenAlex
- W3195690184
- Cited by
- 29
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 4
- FWCI
- 0.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Psychology and Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- IRIS UNIMORE (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Colorectal Cancer Screening and Detection
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Global Cancer Incidence and Screening
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Women's cancer prevention and management
- Keywords
- disgust, colorectal cancer screening, screening intention, screening uptake
- MeSH terms
- Disgust, Emotions, Humans, Phenotype, Colorectal Neoplasms, Early Detection of Cancer
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