O34 Barriers to faecal occult blood testing as a screening tool in a Middle Eastern country

IntroductionFaecal occult blood testing (FOBt) is the least invasive method among the various colorectal cancer (CRC) screening modalities. We studied the potential barriers that may prevent the general population from undergoing FOBt.Methods1477 individuals aged 45 years old or older living in Jordan were approached to participate in the study by self-reported questionnaires. Only 1449 participants were involved in the analysis after the exclusion of 28 participants due to missing data. several barriers for using FOBt as a screening test for CRC were evaluated.ResultsThe mean age of the study population is 57.3 ± 8.25 years with a male predominance of 62.6%. The predominant barrier to be reported was the lack of knowledge towards FOBt (n=447), where a statistically significant association with gender was found in this group as 35.9% of the females had inadequate information compared to 27.9% of the males (p=0.002). Fear from the test results was the second most common barrier (n=95), with gender also demonstrating a statistically significant association as 10.8% of females compared to 4.1% of males (p