Psychological consequences of false-positive screening mammograms in the UK

Objectives To identify the psychological effects of false-positive screening mammograms in the UK. Methods Systematic review of all controlled studies and qualitative studies of women with a false-positive screening mammogram. The control group participants had normal mammograms. All psychological outcomes including returning for routine screening were permit-ted. All studies had a narrative synthesis. Results The searches returned seven includable studies (7/4423). Heterogeneity was such that meta-analysis was not possible. Studies using disease-specific measures found that, compared to normal results, there could be enduring psychological distress that lasted up to 3 years; the level of distress was related to the degree of invasive-ness of the assessment. At 3 years the relative risks were, further mammography, 1.28 (95 % CI 0.82 to 2.00), fine needle aspiration 1.80 (95 % CI 1.17 to 2.77), biopsy 2.0