Evaluating a tailored intervention to increase screening mammography in an urban area

The study was conducted over a four-year period, 1996 and 2000. Participants were recruited using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) software and random-digit dialing (RDD). Study eligibility criteria included living in the King/Drew Medical Center service area in Los Angeles, having an operable telephone, being female > or = 40 years old and not having had a screening mammogram in the past year. Four-hundred-thirty respondents were randomly assigned to the intervention and comparison groups. English and Spanish focus-group-tested tailored interventions were administered telephonically by trained interviewers. African Americans and Latinas constituted 83.0% of the sample at assignment and 83.8% at six-month follow-up, which is representative of the study area.

The main outcome variable of interest in this study was having a screening mammogram during the time interval between baseline and the six-month follow-up assessment. Multiple logistic regressions that revealed factors predicting the outcome variable included: 1) age (p < or = 0.05, OR=2.22, CI 0.98-5.0); 2) study group (p < or = 0.05, OR=1.76, CI 1.06-2.92); 3) prior mammograms (p < or = 0.05, O0R=2.51, 1.39-4.56); and 4) and knowledge of the age when a woman should begin getting mammograms on a regular basis (p < or = 0.05, OR=0.55, 0.33-0.92).

Tailored telephone counseling increased the instances of screening mammograms by nearly 8% in the intervention group at follow-up. The results of this study confirm previous findings regarding the impact of structural and behavioral factors related to screening mammography.