Long-term compliance with follow-up after treatment for cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia
Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 07/19/2012
Soutter WP et al. – Comparing the average interval between attendances with the planned interval prescribed by protocol is a sensitive measure of compliance. Compliance with follow up deteriorates significantly with time since treatment. This decline in compliance may contribute to the increased risk of invasive disease after treatment.
Methods- Attendance data was obtained from hospital–based colposcopy and community–based databases.
- The average interval between the appointments attended by each woman was compared with the planned interval between visits.
- The time that elapsed since the previous appointment attended was calculated for each visit and correlated with the time since treatment.
- 1013 women attended 4128 follow–up visits in the colposcopy clinic and in the community.
- Twenty–two (2.2%) women never attended any post–treatment appointment and 209 (21.0%) of the 991 women who attended at least once, did so on average more than 12 months later than specified by the follow–up protocol.
- There was a highly significant correlation between the interval since the previous appointment and the time since treatment (Kendall's tau b = 0.529614, two sided P<0.0001) showing that compliance deteriorates with increasing time since treatment.
