Effects of a telephone intervention on breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening: A meta-analysis

This meta-analysis aimed to explore the effects of telephone interventions on screening behavior for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancers.

PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature were searched from inception to June 2024 using keywords related to telephone, cancer screening, uptake, and randomized controlled trial. Characteristics of the study, participants, interventions, and outcomes were then extracted.

A total of 72 articles were deemed eligible, 43.06% were published before 2010, and 94.44% had a low risk of overall bias. The telephone group was 2.05 (95% CI: 1.81, 2.32) times more likely to undergo cancer screening than the control group, which received regular care without telephone or letter. The results were similar across the three cancer screenings, as well as for telephone reminders and counseling. The telephone-only or telephone and letter group were 1.45 (95% CI: 1.27, 1.66) and 1.56 (95% CI: 1.39, 1.74) times more likely to undergo cancer screening than the letter group, respectively.

Telephone interventions can improve breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening compared to no intervention. The impact of new technologies on population-based reminders requires further evaluation.