Symptom awareness measures for breast and cervical cancer in sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review

SA Journal of Oncology

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Symptom awareness measures for breast and cervical cancer in sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review
 
Creator Githaiga, Jennifer N. Walter, Fiona M. Scott, Suzanne E. Mwaka, Amos D. Moodley, Jennifer
 
Subject public health; cancer research scoping review; breast and cervical cancer; symptom awareness measures; sub-Saharan Africa
Description Background: In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women, while cervical cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death. Women often fail to recognise or misinterpret possible symptoms, so breast and cervical cancer symptom awareness information can promote timely help-seeking behaviour, diagnosis and start of treatment.Aim: To identify tools that have been utilised to measure breast and cervical cancer symptom awareness in SSA and to establish if such tools have been validated in SSA populations.Methods: A scoping review of articles published between January 1997 and February 2017, written in English and describing primary research in breast and/or cervical cancer symptom awareness-related topics in SSA contexts, was undertaken across five databases. The approach was supported by Colquhoun et al.’s methodological framework for scoping reviews.Results: A total of 41 studies were included from 11 SSA countries. Almost half (20/41) used breast and/or cervical cancer symptom awareness tools but did not report on tool validation processes. The rest (21/41) made reference to some tool validation, yet only two reported a detailed account of their tool validation processes. One explored lay perceptions of breast cancer, while the other sought to establish the validity and reliability of a UK tool in a Kenyan context.Conclusion: The findings point to the dearth of comprehensively validated and culturally relevant tools to measure breast and cervical cancer symptom awareness in the SSA context. They have informed the development and validation of an African Women Awareness of CANcer (AWACAN) tool, which can support the development and evaluation of interventions relevant to the SSA context.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor South African Medical Research Council MRC UK (via the Newton Fund) GlaxoSmithKline Africa Non-Communicable Disease Open Lab (via a supporting grant Project Number: 023) University of Cape Town the Cancer Association of South Africa.
Date 2019-06-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Scoping Review
Format text/html application/epub+zip application/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajo.v3i0.78
 
Source South African Journal of Oncology; Vol 3 (2019); 9 pages 2523-0646 2518-8704
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajo.org.za/index.php/sajo/article/view/78/215 https://sajo.org.za/index.php/sajo/article/view/78/214 https://sajo.org.za/index.php/sajo/article/view/78/216 https://sajo.org.za/index.php/sajo/article/view/78/213
 
Coverage Sub-Saharan Africa; South Africa; Uganda 1997-2017 —
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Jennifer N. Githaiga, Fiona M. Walter, Suzanne E. Scott, Amos D. Mwaka, Jennifer Moodley https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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