Pictorially assisted recall of past hormone use in case-control studies

A small telephone interview study to evaluate the use of a pictorial memory aid in the recall of past hormone use was conducted in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1986. The analysis presented here was restricted to postmenopausal women aged 45-74 years who had an intact uterus and who had taken hormone replacement therapy for six months or more. Spontaneous recall was compared with recall in which explicit mention of the use of the display was made. The display more than doubled the number of women who recalled both the name and the dose of their therapy. Studies which use memory aids should include questions to further document the usefulness of such aids.