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A new study indicates that false-positive mammograms do not affect a woman’s overall well-being, Professor Anna Tosteson tells CBS News. In addition, she says, the experience of receiving a false-positive appears to make a woman more likely to undergo the screening in the future.

“Our study showed that anxiety from false-positive mammograms was temporary and did not affect a woman’s overall well-being,” says The Geisel School of Medicine’s Tosteson, a professor of medicine and of community and family medicine and professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

Prior to the study, she tells CBS News, “the consensus was that false-positive exams are common and may cause anxiety for women and have an impact on their health-related quality of life. What was at issue was, how big an impact these [false-positives] have on general health and well-being in the long run.”

Read the full story, published 4/22/14 by CBS News.