Improving the Information sent to Women about Cervical Screening

NHSCSP Publication No 5 - ISBN 1 87 1997 77 1 - published April 1997

Guidelines on the Presentation and Content of Letters and Leaflets

The purpose of these guidelines is to improve the quality of the written information provided to women at all stages of the screening process. The guidelines are based on a research project undertaken by Dr Joan Austoker and her colleagues at the CRC Primary Care Education Research Group.

The project was in two parts: the first looked at the existing research evidence about the presentation and content of written information in order to develop a set of criteria for the inclusion of issues in letters and leaflets. The second part of the project was an evaluation of letters and leaflets in current use in order to assess how closely they matched the criteria.

These guidelines summarise, in the form of practical check lists, current NHS Cervical Screening Programme policies and standards for written information and the issue which the research evidence suggests should be included in letters and leaflets. The detailed criteria, supporting evidence and the evaluation are published as a separate document Improving the Quality of the Written Information sent to Women about Cervical Screening: Evidence-based Criteria and Evaluation of the Content of Letters and Leaflets.

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NHS Cervical Screening Publications