Dermatology: Practical and Conceptual Research Letter | Dermatol Pract Concept. 2025;15(1):4650 1 Attitudes and Behaviors Regarding Sun Exposure of the Italian Population Vincenzo Piccolo1, Charles Taïeb2, Marketa Saint Aroman3, Catherine Baissac3, Eleonora Cinelli4, Giuseppe Argenziano1 1 Dermatology Unit, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Naples, Italy 2 Patients Priority, European Market Maintenance Assessment, Paris, France 3 Dermo-Cosmetic & Personal Care, Pierre Fabre, Toulouse, France 4 Dermo-Cosmetic & Personal Care, Pierre Fabre Italia, Milan, Italy Key words: Italy, Public Health, Sun Exposure Citation: Piccolo V, Taïeb C, Saint Aroman M, Baissac C, Cinelli E, Argenziano G. Attitudes and behaviors regarding sun exposure of the Italian Population. Dermatol Pract Concept. 2025;15(1):4650. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5826/dpc.1501a4650 Accepted: August 11, 2024; Published: January 2025 Copyright: ©2024 Piccolo et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial License (BY-NC-4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/, which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are credited. Funding: This project was funded by the Department of Patient Centricity of Pierre Fabre Group, France. Competing Interests: None. Authorship: All authors have contributed significantly to this publication. Corresponding Author: Charles Taieb, MD, Patients Priority, European Market Maintenance Assessment, Paris, France. E-mail: charles.taieb@emma.clinic Introduction Young Italians like a tanned look, increasing the risk of sunburn and subsequently increasing the risk of skin mela- noma [1,2]. The aim of this study was to investigate attitudes and behaviors regarding sun exposure in a representative Italian population. The ALL PROJECT provides a survey on representative and extrapolatable samples of the general population aged 16 or more of 20 countries (Italy, 4001) [3]. Since the study used anonymized data and did not involve any clinical examination, institutional ethics committee ap- provals were not required. Case Presentation Descriptive analyses using absolute and percentage frequen- cies were performed. For constant variables mean and me- dian and estimates of dispersion (standard deviation, range) were calculated. The test of significance was two-sided and established at 5% (P ≤ 0.05). Z Pearson Chi-square was per- formed. A total of 1988 (49.7%) males and 2013 (50.3%) females (mean age 46.79 +/- 15.80 [16-92 years]) were in- cluded; 83.8% (3354/4000) were identified as fair skin according to the Fitzpatrick classification. Of all respon- dents, 23.3% reported no sun exposure, 36.6 % admitted exposure before 11 am, 28.8% exclusively after 4 pm, and 1787 (44.7%) reported exposure to the sun between 11 am and 4 pm. The most frequent reason for this risky behavior (among those who say they were familiar with public health rec- ommendations) was the advantage (34.7%) and the avail- ability (44.7%) for their activities in these hours; 81.9% (3278/4001) declared being aware of public health experts’ recommendations against exposure between 11 am and 4 pm. Respondents who sunbathed between 11 am and 4 pm were as well informed of these recommendations as other 2 Research Letter | Dermatol Pract Concept. 2025;15(1):4650 targeted methods should be developed to prevent skin can- cer, with an additional education program among high-risk skin cancer patients to change their behavior. References 1. Gandini S, Stanganelli I, Magi S, et al. Melanoma attributable to sunbed use and tan seeking behaviours: an Italian survey. Eur J Dermatol. 2014;24(1):35-40. DOI:10.1684/ejd.2013.2214. PMID: 24334101. 2. Gandini S, Sera F, Cattaruzza MS, et al. Meta-analysis of risk factors for cutaneous melanoma: II. Sun exposure. Eur J Cancer. 2005;41(1):45-60. DOI: 10.1016/j.ejca.2004.10.016. PMID: 15617990. 3. Lim HW, Saint Aroman M, Skayem C, Halioua B, Perez Cullell N, Ben Hayoun Y, et al. Sun exposure and protection habits: Self-reported attitudes, knowledge and behaviours. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2024. DOI: 10.1111/jdv.20080. PMID: 38738687. patients (80.6% versus 83.0%, P 0.53). Of the individuals who asserted to having been exposed to the sun, 80.5% declared that they had used sunscreens during the sunniest period (37.6% every 2 hours and 42.9% more irregularly and less frequently). The motivation of those who wore sun- screens was mainly the wish to avoid sunburn (67.5%) and to reduce the risk of skin cancer (54.5%). The 598 (19.5%) respondents who did not wear sunscreens explained their behavior by saying that they considered the topical applica- tion tedious (24.5%) and because they did not think about it (48,2%). Conclusions This study shows that, despite widespread dissemination of public health messages about the importance of sun pro- tection, we need an effective education policy, and more