PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Cancer Control Soc.
Sec. Behavioural Aspects in Cancer Screening and Diagnosis
This article is part of the Research TopicBehavioral Research into Acceptability of Cancer Early DiagnosisView all 7 articles
Challenges of assessing acceptability in the context of cancer screening: A behavioural science perspective
Provisionally accepted
Charlotte Kelley Jones1*
Ninian Schmeising Barnes1Stephanie Bonfield1
Lily Taylor2
Lorna McWilliams3Jo Waller1Emma Lidington1Evangelos Katsampouris1Lauren Gatting1Suzanne Scott1- 1Queen Mary University of London, London, United Kingdom
- 2University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
- 3The University of Manchester, Manchester, England, United Kingdom
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In response to an increased focus on acceptability research in healthcare, this perspective paper highlights the challenges of assessing acceptability and the need for, and importance of, further work to develop best practice guidelines for evaluating the acceptability of cancer screening. We report the results of a rapid consultation consensus survey carried out to explore the extent of conceptual, methodological, and translational challenges shared by those involved in assessing the acceptability of cancer screening. Our findings demonstrate that the current lack of consensus regarding the conceptualisation and definition of acceptability is a key challenge which gives rise to further methodological and translational issues. The implications of the challenges experienced by those assessing the acceptability of cancer screening are discussed from a behavioural science perspective.
Keywords: Acceptability, cancer screening, Early detection, implementation science, Theoretical framework of acceptability, Consolidated Framework of Implementation Research, Consensus survey
Received: 08 Apr 2025; Accepted: 05 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kelley Jones, Schmeising Barnes, Bonfield, Taylor, McWilliams, Waller, Lidington, Katsampouris, Gatting and Scott. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Charlotte Kelley Jones, c.kelleyjones@qmul.ac.uk
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