Providing letters and audiotapes to supplement a prenatal diagnostic consultation: effects on later distress and recall.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at the intervention named in the title.

This randomized controlled trial conducted at the Fetal Medicine Centre at Birmingham Women's Hospital aimed to assess the relative value of providing 1.standard information: a consultation and computer-generated ultrasound report (n = 29); 2.standard information plus a post scan written non-technical letter (n = 29); 3.standard information plus audiotapes of the consultation (n = 29); 4.standard information plus both non-technical letters and audiotapes (n = 30).

It also aimed at exploring whether severity of diagnosis (none; mild; moderate-severe) interacted with the type of information provided to affect subsequent anxiety, depression and recall of information.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, women only.

Women (n = 550) referred with suspected fetal anomalies (without a previous history of anomaly or known psychiatric illness) were sent information regarding this study.

One hundred and seventeen women consented and were randomly assigned to one of four information groups.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized study.

Because people in this study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

The groups were similar with regard to age, education and marital status.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Anxiety, Correspondence as Topic, Fetal Diseases, Patient Education as Topic, Pregnancy Trimester, Second, Prenatal Diagnosis and Psychiatric Status Rating Scales.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 8 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2003 (Prenatal diagnosis), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.