Attitude or information: an intervention to increase cervical screening intentions in young women

Abstract

Equipment: Computer, projecter with audio output Background: Following up cross-sectional findings, this study investigated whether increasing information or encouraging positive attitude would more successfully strengthen screening intentions in women about to engage with the Irish National Cervical Screening Programme. Methods: 94 women aged 23 to 24 years were quasi-randomised into 4 groups who viewed a video that encouraged positive attitude, saw an informational video, received the script of the attitude video as reading material, or saw an unrelated video as a no-treatment control. Attitude and intention were measured at pre-test and follow-up, in addition to immediate-change measures of attitude and intention. Results: Women reported strong intentions and positive attitude at pre-test. Although all groups reported stronger screening intentions and more positive attitude immediately after the intervention, there were no significant differences between the groups. Mixed ANOVA found no significant differences between groups at follow-up. Conclusions: Our experiment was unable to identify a most successful intervention format. Methodological issues may account for this: we observed a ceiling effect in pre-test intention and small effects may be undetectable with our sample size.