Abstract
BackgroundThe study’s purpose was to examine the effectiveness of different reminder strategies on first-time free mammography screening among middle-aged women in Taiwan.MethodsA quasi-experimental design with random assignment was adopted to divide the participants into three Reminder Strategies groups (mail reminder, telephone reminder, and combined mail and telephone reminders) and one control group. This study recruited 240 eligible middle-aged women, and 205 of them completed the study. Upon the completion of data collection, mail reminders were provided to women of the first group; telephone reminders were provided to the second group; mail followed by telephone reminders were provided to the third group, and the usual postcards were provided to the control group 1 month after the interventions. Two follow-up assessments were conducted 1 and 3 months after the intervention to collect mammography-screening behaviors from all groups.ResultsThe findings showed that, compared to the control group, more participants in the intervention groups underwent mammography screening after receiving reminder interventions. Telephone contact as reminder was found to have the most significant influence among the interventions (OR = 5.0556; 95% CI = 2.0422–13.5722).ConclusionsGovernment and healthcare providers are recommended to consider adopting the telephone reminder strategy to encourage women to undergo their first-time mammography screening.
Highlights
The study’s purpose was to examine the effectiveness of different reminder strategies on first-time free mammography screening among middle-aged women in Taiwan
Study design A quasi-experimental design with random assignment was adopted to divide the participants into four groups, including three intervention groups and a control group, to examine the impact of different reminder strategies
No significant differences were found among the four groups in the basic demographic variables that were considered confounding variables based on the literature and were controlled for further analysis [15,16,17,18]
Summary
The study’s purpose was to examine the effectiveness of different reminder strategies on first-time free mammography screening among middle-aged women in Taiwan. According to the statistics from the National Health Administration of Taiwan in 2014, the incidence rate of breast cancer was the highest among females aged 45–49 [5]. These statistics triggered much discussion as to whether government should provide free mammograms for younger women under the age of 50. Mammography screening has been shown to be an effective strategy for early detection of breast cancer, 63.3% of Taiwanese women aged 45–69 have never received mammography screening [6].
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