Developing the Evidence Base to Inform Best Practice: A Scoping Study of Breast and Cervical Cancer Reviews in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Margaret M Demment, Karen Peters, J Andrew Dykens, Ann Dozier, Haq Nawaz, Scott McIntosh, Jennifer S Smith, Angela Sy, Tracy Irwin, Thomas T Fogg, Mahmooda Khaliq, Rachel Blumenfeld, Mehran Massoudi and Timothy De Ver Dye

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: Background: Breast and cervical cancers have emerged as major global health challenges and disproportionately lead to excess morbidity and mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) when compared to high-income countries. The objective of this paper was to highlight key findings, recommendations, and gaps in research and practice identified through a scoping study of recent reviews in breast and cervical cancer in LMICs. Methods: We conducted a scoping study based on the six-stage framework of Arskey and O’Malley. We searched PubMed, Cochrane Reviews, and CINAHL with the following inclusion criteria: 1) published between 2005-February 2015, 2) focused on breast or cervical cancer 3) focused on LMIC, 4) review article, and 5) published in English. Results: Through our systematic search, 63 out of the 94 identified cervical cancer reviews met our selection criteria and 36 of the 54 in breast cancer. Cervical cancer reviews were more likely to focus upon prevention and screening, while breast cancer reviews were more likely to focus upon treatment and survivorship. Few of the breast cancer reviews referenced research and data from LMICs themselves; cervical cancer reviews were more likely to do so. Most reviews did not include elements of the PRISMA checklist. Conclusion: Overall, a limited evidence base supports breast and cervical cancer control in LMICs. Further breast and cervical cancer prevention and control studies are necessary in LMICs.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0134618 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 34618&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0134618

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0134618

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().