The impact of a television soap opera on the NHS Cervical Screening Programme in the North West of England.

Background: Mass media interventions can influence health care utilization but the effect of televised fictional accounts of illness upon national screening programmes is unknown. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of a Coronation Street story line, in which one of the characters died from cervical cancer, on the National Health Service (NHS) Cervical Screening Programme.

Methods: The study involved a retrospective analysis of information held on cervical screening databases ('Exeter' computer systems) of the nine Health Authorities constituting the Lancashire and Greater Manchester zones of the North West Region of the NHS. The number of cervical smears performed in the community, in women over 25 years of age, whose previous smear was normal and who were on routine recall, during a 6 month period that included the story line, was compared with those taken over the same period in the previous year. The proportions of smears classified by a screening interval of 'unscheduled', 'on time', 'overdue' or 'no previous smear' were compared.

Results: The number of smears performed increased from 65,714 in 2000 to 79,712 in 2001, an increase of 13,998 (21.3 percent; 95 per cent confidence interval (CI) 21.0-21.6 per cent) in the 19 weeks after the story line. The increase in the number of smears occurred in all categories of screening interval, with the largest increase seen in those attending 'on-time' (26 per cent).

Conclusions: We have demonstrated a large impact of a soap opera story line on the cervical screening programme although the benefit to health is not clear. Further research will determine the long-term effect of the story.