Mother's Attitudes towards the Mass Screening of Neuroblastoma

Two hundred and two mothers whose, infants participated in mass screening of neuroblastoma in Sapporo City, and 200 mothers whose infants did not, were interviewed about their attitudes towards the mass screening. Only a few nonparticipants (3.5%) thought the mass screening was unnecessary. More than half of non-participations (56.0%) were due to mothers' forgetfulness or to loss of the “Neuroblastoma Screening Examination Set” during the two months' interval between the delivery of the set and the sample submission. Mailing of the set at six months for the purpose of eliminating this interval would greatly reduce such neglect of the mass screening. On the other hand, not many infants would participate in re-screening for detection of false negative cases, since the percentage of mothers who were willing to make their children take part in rescreening for a fee of 1,000 yen (about 7 U.S. dollars, which would be administratively necessary) was less than 60%. (Acta Paediatr Jpn 1989; 31: 166–170)