INEQUALITIES AND ATTENDANCES AT COLPOSCOPY APPOINTMENTS

Authors: Dr Luveon Yu On Tang¹, Miss Rebecca Gibbs¹

1. Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG

Background

•      Sociodemographic ‘pattern’  have been observed among non-attenders at 2 week-wait appointments (Jefferson, 2019)

•      Ethnicity, social economic deprivation, disability and geographic location of residence have been related to disparities in cervical cancer screening uptake and potential outcome (Fuzzell, 2021)

•      Non-attendance rate in England is 7.6%; 2-week-wait suspected cancer referrals in the UK is 5-7%

•      This study examines the demographics of non-attenders at colposcopy clinic appointments to identify the underserved groups within our local population

Methodology

•      Using the latest national NHS England “did not attend” rate at 2019 (7.6%); a power calculation was performed which indicated a sample size of >=230 is adequate for this study

•      Patients scheduled for colposcopy clinic appointments at a local unit in November 2023 were identified via Electronic Patient Record System (EPR) (n=256)

•      Patient records on EPR and Mediscan were reviewed to collect information on demographics and reason for referral, date of referral and type of appointments

•      The variable Index of Multiple Deprivation Decile was generated using the English Indices of Deprivation 2019, based on patient’s postcode

•      Chi-square (χ²) test have been used to test the association between categorical variables (new patient, ethnicity, Index of Multiple Deprivation decile, primary language not being English) and non-attendance at scheduled colposcopy clinic appointment

•      Binomial logistic regression with used to model the association between age, length of time from referral to scheduled clinic appointment and demographics variables

Results

•      The non-attendance rate within this sample was 12.9%, which is higher than overall non-attendance rate in England (7.6%)and the reported rate for non-attendance at 2-week-wait suspected cancer referrals in the UK (5-7%)

•      The study had not demonstrated any statistically significant relationship between non-attendance at colposcopy clinic, and being a new patient, under consultant care, ethnicity, Index of Multiple Deprivation decile, primary language not being English, age, length of time from referral to scheduled clinic appointment using chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression