Breast Cancer Screening Barriers from the Womans Perspective: a Meta-synthesis

Abstract

<b>Background:</b> The principal aim of health service providers in the field of breast cancer is to detect andtreat lesions at an appropriate time. Therefore, identification of barriers to screening can be very helpful. Thepresent study aimed to systematically review the qualitative studies for extracting and reporting the barriersof screening for breast cancer from the womans perspective. Materials and <br/><b>Methods</b>: In this systematic review;Pubmed, Google Scholar, Ovid Scopus, Cochrane Library, Iranmedex, and SID were searched using thekeywords: screening barriers, cancer, qualitative studies, breast and their Persian equivalents, and the neededdata were extracted and analyzed using an extraction table. To assess the quality of the studies, the CriticalAppraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool was used. <br/><b>Results</b>: From 2,134 related articles that were found, 21articles were eventually included in the study. The most important barriers from the point of view of 1,084women were lack of knowledge, access barriers (financial, geographical, cultural), fear (of results and pain),performance of service providers, women’s beliefs, procrastination of screening, embarrassment, long wait forgetting an appointment, language problems, and previous negative experiences. Articles’ assessment score was68.9. <br/><b>Conclusions</b>: Increasing women’s knowledge, reducing the costs of screening services, cultural promotionfor screening, presenting less painful methods, changing beliefs of health service providers, provision of privacyfor giving service, decreasing the waiting time, and providing high quality services in a respectful manner canbe effective ways to increase breast cancer screening.