At baseline and 2 years, participants indicated how many sunburns they received in the past 6 months, ranging from none to more than 2 3 per week.
The most common response, provided by nearly half of those reporting sunburns, indicated difficulties with sunscreen use – specifically, 4 (26.7%) reported forgetting sunscreen or missing a spot and 4 (26.7%) reported that their sunscreen wore off during exercise or water activities (e.g., "Went to waterpark. I used sunscreen 60+ but still got burned after only 2 hours. Non-peak hours of 4 6:00").
Failure of supervision may be indicated by injuries for example, a burn, sunburn, an ingestion of a harmful substance, or an animal bite.
Additional inspection of the data indicated that two participants had outlying sunburn scores at baseline that were >3 SDs from the sample mean (an affected carrier with 12 and an unaffected carrier with 6).
This topical does increase sensitivity to the sun as indicated on the package, so sunscreen use is often advised during the treatment to prevent sunburn.
More than one third of the participants indicated that they never use sunscreen and 43% reported having one or more sunburns in the past year.
Simple effects tests indicated that the decrease over time was significant only for affected carriers (p<.026), whose sunburns decreased from an average of 2.01 at baseline to 0.60 at 2 years.
In a related research project, Zeina Dajani, a medical student at Boston University, found that a number of sunless tanners that did not contain sunscreen failed to carry a warning label, mandated by the Food and Drug Administration, to indicate that the products do not protect against sunburn and other damage.
SPF indicates the amount of protection sunscreens offer against UVB, which is the main cause of sunburn.
Many studies indicate a significantly increased risk of cutaneous melanoma subsequent to sunburn/sunlamp exposure, especially among individuals who are young, Caucasian, and female [ 96- 98].
