Patient Perspectives on Longitudinal Adherence to Lung Cancer Screening

Annual lung cancer screening (LCS) has mortality benefits for eligible participants; however, studies demonstrate low adherence to follow-up LCS.

What are patients' perspectives on barriers and facilitators to adherence to annual LCS?

Forty participants enrolled in the University of Washington/Seattle Cancer Care Alliance LCS program completed a demographic questionnaire and a semistructured interview based on the Tailored Implementation in Chronic Diseases framework to determine attitudes, barriers, and facilitators to longitudinal LCS. Interviews were coded using principles of framework analysis to identify and compare themes between adherent and nonadherent participants.

The 40 participants underwent initial LCS in 2017 with negative results. Seventeen were adherent to follow-up annual LCS, whereas 23 were not. Seven overall themes emerged from qualitative analysis, which are summarized as follows: (1) screening experiences are positive and participants have positive attitudes toward screening; (2) provider recommendation is a motivator and key facilitator for most patients; (3) many patients are influenced by personal factors and symptoms and do not understand the importance of asymptomatic screening; (4) common barriers to longitudinal screening include cost, insurance coverage, accessibility, and other medical conditions; (5) patients have variable preferences about how they receive their screening results, and many have residual questions about their results and future screening; (6) reminders are an important facilitator of annual screening; and (7) most patients think a navigator would be beneficial to the screening process, with different aspects of navigation thought to be most helpful. Those who were not adherent more commonly reported individual barriers to screening, competing health concerns, and less provider communication.

Key facilitators (eg, patient reminders, provider recommendations) may improve long-term screening behavior, and a number of barriers to the screening process could be addressed through patient navigation.