Introduction: Men with testicular cancer are usualy in the age range of 15 to 40 years. If testicular cancer is detected at an early stage of its development, it can be cured. On the one hand, men sometimes do not know that they suffer from testicular cancer. On the other hand, if they know, they are usually ashamed to talk about their illness. Therefore the fundamental problem of testicular cancer is thus its low detectability. One of the ways of improving the detect of testicular cancer is informing of men that they can learn to detection changes in their testes themselves with self-diagnosis.
The purpose of the present paper is to analyses the possibilities of engaging of men in the age range of 15–40 years to use prophylactic self-examination of the testes. The article is an attempt to answer the question of how high school students in Toruń and Gronowo percieves the use of the practice of testicular self-examination.
Methods: Two methods of research were used to gain the assumed purpose: observation and survey. The data of the research were gathered with the evaluation questionnaire.
Results and conclusions: The campaign of “Brave winners” is the idea of The Gdynia’s Bridge of Hope Foundation. The Action has started in the 2009 year in Gdynia. Participants of the campaign in Toruń derive from the experience of this action in Gdynia, so, eg. they consult their activities with the Foundation’s leaders in Gdynia and receive ready-made educational materials from Gdynia. One of the participants of the campaign in Toruń is an educator who had testicular cancer. Local media have presented information about the campaign. Unfortunately, students of pedagogy have given up to take part in the project and the number of educators was decreased. No students wanted to cooperate in the frame the so-called peer education. Information gathered with the evaluation questionnaire allow to state that, according to the youth, education about testicular prophylaxis is: a) important, needed (70.5%), b) the transmitted content – understandable (64.4%), c) the acquired knowledge – useful (49.3% – definitely yes; 31,1% – rather yes), d) the way of conducting classes – appropriate (88.4%).
Possitive assesment of classes by students and similiar assesment of the campaign by the school employees have caused that other schools have declared their willingness to organize activities that relate to testicular self-examination. Therefore, The Academy of Fighting Cancer in Toruń continues the campaign “Brave winners” and expands its activities.
