Appointment Backlog Frustrates Ad Campaign Potential

Abstract

In a recent issue of Perspectives, we discussed the effects of a six-month advertising campaign on recruiting new family planning patients, comparing project enrollment figures in selected cities with and without the advertising campaign.1 Memphis, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi, registered modest increases in recruitment, which were shown to be statistically greater than increases during the same time period in comparison cities. These increases, however, were not great enough to bring the cost down to the average cost per recruited patient of the next most expensive technique, door-todoor recruitment. In Columbus, Ohio, new patient enrollment was not even statistically greater than that in comparison cities, although ad saturation in Columbus was the highest of any city studied and awareness of the campaign by the target audience was among the two highest. We now offer evidence that the advertising campaign in Columbus did create an increase in the demand for services, but this demand was not translated into increased services because the demand exceeded the service capacity. Instead of increasing clinic capacity, patients were given appointments at progressively longer waiting intervals during the experimental period, and most potential new recruits were probably lost because of the unreasonably long wait for appointments. No direct evidence is available to determine the waiting period between phone calls for appointments and scheduled apnnintment'. We iiusd monthlv totals for