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The effect on women's breast cancer screening utilization of a barrier-specific telephone counseling ( BSTC ) intervention, with and without a concurrent continuing medical education ( CME) activity for their physicians, was evaluated. All participants (50-80 years of age) were not regular mammography users at baseline. A 4-arm quasi-experimental design was employed. Women were randomized to the BSTC or no BSTC group and assigned (with their physicians) to the CME or no CME group based on place of residence. Pre- and postintervention data were obtained for 1,601 women using telephone interviews conducted during 1995 and 1998, respectively. Among women who had ever used mammography at baseline, those who received BSTC were more likely than the control group to become regular mammography users at follow-up (OR = 1.4, p = .033). Greater reductions in perceived barriers to mammography, from baseline to follow-up, were significantly associated with receiving BSTC compared with the control group (p = .001), among women with previous mammography experience. Findings suggest that CME may have potential for initiating mammography use among women who never had a previous mammogram. However, because of the small sample available for analyses of the CME intervention and differential attrition among women who never had a previous mammogram, further study is needed to confirm this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of self-reports of mammography use by low-income women. Mammography van records were used to verify self-report of mammography use in the past year by women aged 50 through 75 years who had visited five community health centers (n = 237). Van records verified mammography use for 99% of these women (82% within the previous year and 98% within the past 2 years). Forty percent of those with van records who reported both the month and year of the mammogram were accurate. Inaccurately reported dates were more frequently after (74%) rather than before (26%) the actual date. These findings indicate that self-reports of mammography use by low-income women are generally reliable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]