NEW YORK, Feb 01 (Reuters Health) -- A 3-minute phone call is an effective
way to remind women to schedule a mammogram, results of a new study suggest.
According to the study, a brief phone call reminder was as effective as a
longer call that addressed a woman's concerns about mammography and barriers to
screening.
Both types of phone calls were twice as effective at encouraging women to
schedule a mammogram as sending a postcard, the researchers found.
"With the growing pressure to increase efficiency and productivity, use of
a brief reminder call has distinct advantages over the costs and complexity of a
motivational contact," report Dr. Stephen Taplin, with the Group Health
Cooperative of Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington, and colleagues.
Mammography is an x-ray technique used to screen for breast cancer. The
American Cancer Society recommends that all women age 40 and older have a
screening mammogram every year.
Indeed, "mammography will achieve its greatest potential to reduce
mortality when large numbers of women are screened regularly," the authors write
in the February 2nd issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The researchers sent a reminder postcard to 3,743 women between the ages
of 50 and 79 years who were enrolled in a Seattle-based health maintenance
organization (HMO) and who had agreed to participate in the study.
After 2 months, 1,765 of these women had not scheduled a mammogram. These
women received either another postcard (590 women), a brief phone call (585
women), or a longer phone call (590 women).
Postcards informed each woman that breast screening was an important part
of healthcare and that she could still schedule an appointment.
Brief reminder calls averaged 3.1 minutes and motivational calls, which
lasted 8.5 minutes, addressed concerns about participating in screening.
Women who were contacted by phone could schedule a mammogram during the
call, while women who received postcards were required to call the HMO to
schedule an appointment.
The study found that 35.4% of women who received a postcard scheduled a
mammogram within a year, compared with 51.8% of women who received a brief phone
call and 49.8% of those who received a longer call.
Further, the 1,277 women who had a mammogram in the past were three times
more likely to get a mammogram than the 488 women who had never been screened.
The study authors found that women with higher incomes were more likely to
get a mammogram. Race and education, however, were not associated with the
likelihood of breast cancer screening.
