Effectiveness of an Intervention for Adherence to Follow-up Recommendations for Abnormal Pap Tests in Appalachian Kentucky.

OBJECTIVE In collaboration with rural county health departments (CHDs), we developed a patient navigation intervention to increase adherence to follow-up recommendations for women with abnormal Pap tests. METHODS Local women were recruited, trained and placed in CHDs. Navigation was tailored to the follow-up care recommended. Effectiveness was evaluated in a quasi-experimental trial that included 13 intervention CHDs and 13 comparison group CHDs. Participants were enrolled from September 2008 through July 2010. RESULTS A total of 478 participants were enrolled. The proportion that received recommended follow-up care was greater in the intervention CHDs (91.6%) than in the comparison group CHDs (80.8%) (p = .01). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that development of policy to promote navigation with rural health care delivery systems has great potential to improve patient outcomes.