Abstract
Two hundred and fifty-nine men and women aged 20-45 years who did not respond to an offer from their general practitioner for a health check were interviewed at home to explore the reasons for non-response. There was no support for the view that the invitation aroused anxiety or that the administrative arrangements had been a barrier to acceptance. Many subjects were not really interested (44%) or just forgot to attend (24%). Crises at work or home (26%) and current attendance at a doctor (16%) were other reasons offered, while 11% felt screening to be in appropriate. There is little that can be done to change these rates except by a shift of public opinion to more consumer demand for health checks or by more opportunistic health checks when people attend their doctors for other reasons. The dangers of marketing health checks to increase consumer demand are discussed in the light of these findings and other work.
Full text
PDF
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Bloom J. R., Monterossa S. Hypertension labeling and sense of well-being. Am J Public Health. 1981 Nov;71(11):1228–1232. doi: 10.2105/ajph.71.11.1228. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Cochrane A. L., Holland W. W. Validation of screening procedures. Br Med Bull. 1971 Jan;27(1):3–8. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.bmb.a070810. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Eardley A., Elkind A. K., Spencer B., Hobbs P., Pendleton L. L., Haran D. Attendance for cervical screening--whose problem? Soc Sci Med. 1985;20(9):955–962. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(85)90352-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- French K., Porter A. M., Robinson S. E., McCallum F. M., Howie J. G., Roberts M. M. Attendance at a breast screening clinic: a problem of administration or attitudes. 1982 Aug 28-Sep 4Br Med J (Clin Res Ed) 285(6342):617–620. doi: 10.1136/bmj.285.6342.617. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Haynes R. B., Sackett D. L., Taylor D. W., Gibson E. S., Johnson A. L. Increased absenteeism from work after detection and labeling of hypertensive patients. N Engl J Med. 1978 Oct 5;299(14):741–744. doi: 10.1056/NEJM197810052991403. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Maclean U., Sinfield D., Klein S., Harnden B. Women who decline breast screening. J Epidemiol Community Health. 1984 Dec;38(4):278–283. doi: 10.1136/jech.38.4.278. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Pill R., French J., Harding K., Stott N. Invitation to attend a health check in a general practice setting: comparison of attenders and non-attenders. J R Coll Gen Pract. 1988 Feb;38(307):53–56. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rundall T. G., Wheeler J. R. The effect of income on use of preventive care: an evaluation of alternative explanations. J Health Soc Behav. 1979 Dec;20(4):397–406. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Schwoon D. R., Schmoll H. J. Motivation to participate in cancer screening programmes. Soc Sci Med. 1979 May;13A(3):283–286. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Stott N. C., Pill R. M. Health promotion and the human response to loss: clinical implications of a decade of primary health care research. Fam Pract. 1987 Dec;4(4):278–286. doi: 10.1093/fampra/4.4.278. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]