Encouraging long-term compliance with breast self-examination: the evaluation of prompting strategies

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of two prompting interventions on promoting long-term compliance with breast self-examination (BSE). Subjects were 83 faculty and staff at a state university who volunteered to learn BSE at a 1-hr workshop. Following the workshop, subjects were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: phone-prompt group, mail-prompt group, or control group. Prompted subjects received BSE reminders twice a month for 7 months. Performance of BSE was assessed by an ongoing, indirect behavioral measure. Results indicated that the prompts, particularly those delivered by phone, were effective in encouraging initial performance of BSE. However, for all conditions, BSE decreased over the course of the study. The implications of these findings are discussed, and recommendations for future research are presented.