Physical Awareness a Key to Improving Adolescent Male Health: A Grounded Theory Study of the Perception of Testicular Self-examination in Male Student Athletes

•Student Athletes were more likely to perform TSE than the general male student population•Physicality is the basic social process•Physical awareness is the core structural process that influenced the student athlete's’ actions•Student athletes address issues that affect performance, the team or threaten identity•Physical awareness often results in action, “two days from testicle to trainer”

There is a significant discrepancy between men and women in their utilization of preventative physicals, resulting in insufficient knowledge of healthy behaviors in men including testicular cancer (TC) awareness. In a review of records, 34.9% of students had awareness of TC identification, which increased to 72.7% in student athletes. This study was designed to explore the view of TC awareness from the student athlete perspective and develop a substantive theory. Focus groups with athletes were conducted and analyzed using classic grounded theory. The basic social process emerged as physicality with a basic structural process of physical awareness, which serves to organize the student’s self-concept or identity as an athlete. A high level of physical awareness may account for student athletes’ increased awareness of TC and affinity for testicular self-examination. Understanding the nature of physicality and how it leads to a heightened physical awareness could improve how health care providers engage their male patients in health prevention topics.