Physicians’ Reasons for Specific Patients Being Up to Date With CRC Guidelines
| Reasons | Illustrative Quotation |
|---|---|
| Reasons for diagnostic testing | |
| Symptoms suggestive of possible CRC | He did have one episode of bleeding and I worked on him for about 2 years to have a colonoscopy. |
| Previous pathology within the colon | He actually had had rectal bleeding back in 1993, and I did a flex sig …, and I found a polyp … So actually what got him started on the trail of lower GI endoscopy was symptoms more than anything else, and he's just followed through as he was instructed with surveillance scopes. |
| Reasons for asymptomatic screening | |
| Physician recommendation to be screened | She actually presented for a health maintenance examination in 2002 and [we] … actually recommended that she be screened for colon cancer. She accepted the recommendations and then chose the colonoscopy as the method of choice. |
| Patient awareness of and interest in screening and health maintenance | [She] did have a screening test because she understands the importance of it. |
| [He] has been a long-time patient who has been interested in regular health supervision examinations and chronicity of care examinations. | |
| Patient has/had a type of cancer other than CRC | [She] had had breast cancer times two. I advised her there was an association between breast cancer and colon cancer and I personally had two cases where this was the case, and this was the motivation for her to move forward with the colonoscopy. |
| Family history of CRC | During [his] well care we discussed risk factors… . He had a positive family history of colon cancer. |
| Multiple factors (family history, physician recommendation, patient awareness) | Basically, her mom had colon cancer, and she actually is clever enough to figure out what we mean when we talk about screening tests. I think she basically just took my advice and decided to go ahead and have a screening test. |
CRC, colorectal cancer; GI, gastrointestinal.