title: Loss to follow-up of patients with abnormal Pap smear: magnitude and reasons.
abstract: We studied the magnitude and reasons for loss to follow-up in cases of abnormal Pap smears. We studied 162 women whose Pap smear results were abnormal. The lost follow-up rate was 41.1 per cent (95% CI: 33.1 to 49.3). Reasons for not coming to receive treatment was mostly related to communication such as not receiving informed letters from the hospital (35.6%), not understanding the messages in the informed letters (10.2%), were informed from the hospital's letters that their results were normal (5.1%), and perceiving that the test result was not serious (13.6%). One third of them had traveling-related reasons. There were 25.4 per cent of patients who sought treatment at other hospitals and 8.5 per cent went to see a traditional healer for treatment. The results provide information to prevent such unnecessary loss after having a Pap smear screening test for cervical carcinoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Thinkhamrop
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lumbiganon
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jitpakdeebodin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D010352:Patient Dropouts / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013785:Thailand; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data