Ethical approval of the study protocol was granted by the Institutional Review Board of the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University (reference no. A11-B39-11B). Eligible patients will include English- and French-speaking adult patients with a confirmed diagnosis of melanoma who seek services at McGill teaching hospitals. Together, these hospitals treat over 400 new melanoma patients annually [
77,
78]. Previous psychosocial studies with cancer populations at the same hospitals [
30,
79,
80] and at other sites [
81‐
92] reported participation rates between 57-86%, with a mean of 76%. Attrition rates range between 4% and 24% in psychosocial studies with an assessment up to 18 months after the treatment of patients with melanoma [
56,
93] or other cancers [
67,
82,
83,
94‐
97]. Enrollment will take place over 2 years and continue until 200 participants have completed the study. A sample of 200 participants provides sufficient statistical power for the analyses (for power estimates see section Data analysis). At all time points the questionnaires will be provided as paper-pencil versions. Participants will be asked up to 3 times to mail back questionnaires completed at home. Interviews will be conducted over the telephone.
During regular clinic visits up to 12 months after their melanoma diagnosis, i.e., at time 1 (T1), eligible patients will be advised by the clinical care staff about the opportunity to participate in the study. In addition, the study will be advertised through flyers and posters in the waiting room area, which will allow interested patients to proactively contact the research team about study participation. The research assistant will provide study information to interested patients, verify study eligibility and collect written, informed consent. Participants will be asked to complete baseline questionnaires on sociodemographic and illness-related information, past SSE behaviors, and psychological functioning at the clinic. Alternatively participants can complete the questionnaires at home and return them to the research team by mail. The research assistant (RA) will access the participants’ medical charts in order to complete the medical information sheet. The second assessment will take place in conjunction with the delivery of the dermatological education at the clinic 3 to 6 months after T1, i.e., at time 2 (T2). Participants will complete questionnaires about distress, coping strategies, physician support and about SSE knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy. In addition, participants who, at the time of data collection, report having a spouse (i.e., having a committed intimate relationship), will be asked to answer questions related to their partner’s impact on SSE practice. Furthermore, these patients will be asked to take home a survey for their spouse, which mirrors the partner-related questions that the patient is asked to answer regarding SSE. Also at time 2, all study participants will receive a 20-minute standardized dermatological education on SSE derived from empirical evidence [
14,
29,
47,
50,
65,
98‐
104] and best practice guidelines [
36,
38,
105‐
109]. Patients will be encouraged to attend the education session together with a significant other (e.g., spouse, other family member, friend) who could assist them with SSE. During the education session, the dermatology-trained RA, i.e., the health educator, will emphasize the usefulness of monthly whole body exams as an effective measure to detect suspicious skin lesions as early as possible. The educator will provide detailed information about how to conduct an effective SSE. This will include an explanation of the well-established ABCDE paradigm (lesion Asymmetry; Border irregularity; Color variation; Diameter; Evolution, e.g. change in size, shape, symptoms, etc.) [
110‐
113] for the detection and interpretation of pigmented lesions by lay persons and health care professionals. Furthermore, the educator will provide handouts, which will assist participants with regular SSE, including a summarizing brochure on melanoma [
114], a bookmark with color printed examples of lesions [
111], a leaflet providing the link to an online video modeling skin self-examination [
115], and a SSE Journal to record skin spots of concern and body parts covered during each home SSE [
116,
117]. At the end of this 20-minute session, the educator will encourage the participant to reflect on their SSE intentions. Subsequently the participant will be asked to note down in the SSE journal
if,
when,
where, and
assisted by whom the participant plans to conduct self-exams. At time 3 (T3), i.e., 3 months after the dermatological education, participants are invited by letter to fill out questionnaires assessing distress, coping strategies, physician and spousal support as well as SSE knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy. In addition, a 10-minute, structured SSE behavior interview with the RA will be scheduled for T3 to assess practice of SSE over the last 3 months. At time 4 (T4), 12 months after the dermatological education, participants will be invited by letter to complete an assessment identical to T3, i.e., questionnaires and SSE behavior interview. At T4 a subsample of 30 patients, which will include the first 15 men and the first 15 women who consent to participate, will be invited to take part in a 50-minute individual, semi-structured interview based on the McGill Illness Narrative Interview [
118] focusing on the following questions: 1) how patients deal with the diagnosis and how they experience the illness; 2) their experience regarding SSE, including how they deal with the ongoing need for thorough SSEs and obstacles to SSE; 3) their experience of physician support of SSE, or lack thereof, and how they deal with it; and 4) their experience of partner support of SSE, or lack thereof, and what facilitates or hinders partner support and how they deal with it. Biological sex is considered explicitly given that previous melanoma research suggests that this is a key variable in relation to SSE [
27,
45,
119‐
121]. Participants will be invited to share and report their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in each of the 4 domains, which were selected based on their relevance to the cancer trajectory and their presumed significance for SSE practice.