Published 22 September 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a1591
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a1591

Analysis

Communicating about screening

¹ Social Dimensions of Health Institute, Universities of Dundee and St Andrews, Dundee, DD1 4HJ, ² Centre for Values, Ethics and Law in Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia, ³ School of Public Health, University of Sydney, ⁴ Screening and Diagnostic Test Evaluation Program, School of Public Health, University of Sydney

Informed choice is important for screening, but not everyone wants or is able to analyse research data. Vikki Entwistle and colleagues propose a new approach to communication

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

People are offered a wide range of screening tests by diverse providers. For example: maternal and child health services screen for genetic conditions and developmental problems; general practitioners screen for cardiovascular risk factors; NHS programmes screen for bowel, breast, and cervical cancer; and commercial providers offer various health assessments, including body and gene scans. Provision of tests is not well regulated, and there is a bewildering amount of information of variable accuracy in the public domain.¹

It is unclear how healthcare providers should communicate about screening in order to support appropriate uptake. And what constitutes appropriate uptake is also contested because of disagreements about the merits of particular tests and tensions between concerns to promote health and to respect autonomy.^{2 3 4} Debates about communication have tended to consider two types of approach, which we call "be screened’ and "analyse and choose." We consider their problems and propose a third approach, "consider . . . [Full text of this article]

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