Cancer-related attitudes: A comparative study in Japan and the US.

The cancer-related attitudes and beliefs of adults living in central Japan (N = 357) were compared to those of respondents in a US state (Hawaii) (N = 223) consisting of both Japanese (n = 106) and Caucasian (n = 117) individuals. Almost all US subjects endorsed doctors disclosing cancer diagnoses to their patients, while a minority of the Japan sample supported cancer disclosure as a general practice. However, the majority of Japan respondents expressed a personal preference to be told if they themselves were diagnosed with cancer, as did virtually all US respondents. US subjects were more optimistic than Japanese subjects about cancer's curability, both at the present time and in the future; Japanese Americans scored intermediate between Japanese and Caucasian Americans. Word-association data indicated that cancer was most likely to be associated with death by Japanese respondents. The data support the continued international differences in views about cancer and suggest that some of these differences persist over many generations of US residence. Copyright 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.