Purpose: Non-adherence to recommended follow-up visits after an abnormal cytological finding is associated with poorer outcomes and higher health care costs. The purpose of this paper is to describe the challenges when examining reasons for non-adherence to cervical cancer screening follow-up and to discuss the recommendations to overcome those challenges.
Methods: We conducted a telephone survey with two subgroups of women: 1) those which adhered to recommended follow-up care after an abnormal Pap test, and 2) those which did not adhere.
Results: The follow-up accrual among non-adherent women lagged behind that of adherers. We were able to contact and conduct a survey with 51% of the adherers and 26% of the non-adherers. The challenges in studying non-adherent women were related to several distinct factors: 1) the definition of non-adherence, 2) the availability of alternate contact information, 3) the amount and type of financial incentives, and 4) the availability of staffing. We describe strategies employed to increase the accrual of non-adherent women.
Discussion: This paper describes four recommendations that may play a role in understanding and reducing non-adherence to follow-up gynecological care.
Keywords: Abnormal Pap Smear; Abnormal Pap Test; Cancer Screening; Cervical Cancer; Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia; HPV; Non-Adherence; Patient Compliance; Patient Navigation.