Use of five psychological parameters for modulating the quality of communication of first call letter for the colorectal cancer screening programme, adapting it to different socio-economic and cultural clusters of Lazio Region's population.

The screening for oncologic prevention is an intervention of proven effectiveness for the reduction of mortality for cancer: the population’s attendance and an appropriate communication represent essential requisites. As for first call letter and relationship with the users, the quality and the weight of communication methods and processes constitute the essential instruments for influencing users’ aware adherence. The users, that are mostly healthy people, expect positive confirmations as regard to their health; but users, especially in wide regions, come from different socio-economic and cultural milieu that could bias the understanding of complex standard call letters and therefore the users’ adherence. Psychology can supply right means for implementing the users’ adherence to the screening. The Lazio Region’s experience shows the weight of a standard first call letter for a colorectal cancer screening programme: the standard letter has been converted into three prototype-letters adapted to the five socio-economic and cultural clusters of Lazio (highaverage, average, low clusters). The clusters have been characterized analyzing the following variables: width of town, cultural standard, concentration of old-aged population, technological profile, yield per capita. The three letters’ contents have been developed by a team of psychologists, applying five psychological parameters to the standard communication for adapting it to the different clusters: cognitive plainness, emotional impact, action’s directivity, protective attitude and responsibility of decisional behavior. The organizational model and the availability of an information system based on individual records will allow to estimate quantitatively the effectiveness of this kind of call letters.