Non-participants in a preventive health examination for cardiovascular disease: characteristics, reasons for non-participation, and willingness to participate in the future

Objective - To describe the non-participants in a preventive health examination for cardiovascular diseases and their reasons for not participating. Design - A preventive health examination, self-administered questionnaire, and telephone interview. Setting - A municipality of 6200 inhabitants in the middle of Sweden. Subjects - 309 persons, 35 or 40 years of age, invited to participate in a health examination. Main outcome measures - Reasons for non-participation, willingness to participate in future health examinations, and smoking. Results - The most important reason for non-participating was lack of time or hindrances at work (52%). Other important reasons were already being in contact with the health services (33%) and feeling quite healthy at present (21%). Over half of the non-participants (55%) would be willing to participate in a similar health examination in the future. The proportion of smokers was significantly higher among the non-participants than among the participants in the health examination (31.3% and 18.6% respectively). Conclusion - More than half of the non-responders were willing to participate in a similar health examination in the future. If special measures to encourage participation in preventive health examinations were undertaken, it would not be unrealistic to aim for a participation rate of nearly 90%.