Abstract
Objectives–
Firstly, to determine if attendance for second round mammography screening in those sent a tailored letter (that is, making reference to their screening history) is increased compared with those sent a standard letter; secondly, to investigate the acceptability of tailored letters.
Setting–
North West Glasgow Breast Screening Centre.
Methods–
A randomised controlled trial.
Results –
Overall attendance was unrelated to whether the women were sent a tailored or standard letter; 60% of those sent the standard letter attended (922/1531) compared with 62% of those sent the tailored letter (956/1552) (χ2 = 0·61, P = 0·4) (difference 2%; 95% confidence interval − 2% to 5%). There were no significant differences in percentage attendance within each of the study subgroups: women who attended previously and received an all clear result, women who attended previously and received a false positive result, women who were invited previously and failed to attend, and women who were previously too young to be invited for screening. However, there was a statistically significant difference in percentage attendance between these four groups, independent of letter type (χ2 = 510, P<0·00001). Although women found the letters acceptable and understandable, they did not seem to pay close attention to the content.
Conclusions–
Tailoring invitation letters does not have a significant effect on uptake rates for breast screening and does not justify the additional workload required.