THURSDAY, April 3, 2025 (HealthDay News) — A patient navigation program is effective for increasing receipt of follow-up colonoscopy among adults with an abnormal stool test result, according to a study published online April 1 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Gloria D. Coronado, Ph.D., from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon, and colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial at 32 clinics in a federally qualified health center in Washington state to examine whether a six-topic, telephone-based patient navigation program delivered to persons with an abnormal stool test result increased follow-up colonoscopy completion at one year. Participants were aged 50 to 75 years with an abnormal fecal test result in the previous month; the primary intention-to-treat analysis included 967 patients: 479 in patient navigation and 488 in usual care.

The researchers found that the patient navigation group had higher receipt of follow-up colonoscopy than the usual care group (55.1 versus 42.1 percent). Patients’ probability of obtaining a colonoscopy without navigation did not moderate the intervention effect.

“Patient navigation improved rates of colonoscopy follow-up after abnormal fetal immunochemical testing results among patients at a large federally qualified health clinic,” the authors write.

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