UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Methods: Thirty-year-old women (N= 3680) to be invited for the first time in the Dutch cervical cancer-screening program were sent the basic tailoring questionnaire to assess their salient beliefs about screening. Subsequently, respondents who fully completed the questionnaire and met the inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to the experimental condition (tailored invitation letter, n= 812) and the control condition (standard invitation letter, n= 805). A process and effect evaluation was performed.

Results: One month after sending the invitation the tailored group scored a significant higher attendance rate of 57.27% compared to 51.18% in the control group. Attendance rates at three, six and nine month were still higher in the tailored condition (74.38%, 78.20% and 78.82% respectively 71.80%, 76.15% and 77.52%), but no longer statistical significant. Respondents rated the tailored invitation letter significantly better than the standard letter. It was more interesting, contained more new information on both advantages and disadvantages of screening and respondents felt more personally addressed. Making use of the tailoring technique seemed feasible in screening areas with a central office responsible for the invitations, but technical problems are foreseen when individual general practitioners are to invite the target population by means of a tailored letter.