Background: Early-stage diagnosis of colorectal cancer is associated with high survival rates; screening prevalence, however, remains suboptimal.
Purpose: This study seeks to test the hypothesis that participants receiving telephone-based tailored education or motivational interviewing had higher colorectal cancer screening completion rates compared to usual care.
Methods: Primary care patients not adherent with colorectal cancer screening and with no personal or family history of cancer (n = 515) were assigned by block randomization to control (n = 169), tailored education (n = 168), or motivational interview (n = 178). The response rate was 70%; attrition was 24%.
Results: Highest screening occurred in the tailored education group (23.8%, p < .02); participants had 2.2 times the odds of completing a post-intervention colorectal cancer screening than did the control group (AOR = 2.2, CI = 1.2-4.0). Motivational interviewing was not associated with significant increase in post-intervention screening.
Conclusions: Tailored education showed promise as a feasible strategy to increase colorectal cancer screening.
Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01099826.