Breast cancer. Exploring the reasons for non-participation of women in a breast cancer screening campaign

Abstract

Study objectives: to determine the reasons for non-participation in a programme of screening for breast cancer. Design: semi-structured telephone interview. Setting: a pilot programme of screening by mammography, targeted at all women aged between 50 and 70 years in two regions of Switzerland. Population: a sample of 33 non-partidpants were interviewed. Main results: few non-participants took advantage of the screening tests for female cancers. However, only one-quarter were determined never to have a mammography. The others did not participate because of organizational problems (one-quarter) or because they did not understand what a mammography involved (half). Conclusions: there is considerable scope for increasing the rate of participation . Efforts must be made to improve the information directed at the socially less favoured (the objectives of the screening and the organizational arrangements). Family doctors are frequently consulted and are best placed to communicate this information. They should be encouraged to play a much more active part in this respect. vj^creening of women aged over 50 years by mammography is widely recognized as being an effective means of reducing the mortality from breast cancer. However, the impact of a screening programme may be limited by various factors,2 notably poor technical quality of the examination, which reduces the predictive value of findings and a low rate of participation, which reduces the impact at the population level. Therefore, a crucial part of population screening for breast cancer is to monitor, analyse and improve the technique of screening and rates of participation. This paper presents the results of a telephone survey carried out to determine the reasons for non-participation in a sample of non-participants in a pilot programme of breast cancer screening in Switzerland.