Systematic overview of quality of life studies for breast cancer.
BACKGROUND
The concept of quality of life (QOL) is essentially subjective, determined from the patient's point of view. Thus, an appropriate investigation and analysis of QOL as an indicator of medical treatment outcome is a task of some difficulty. The physician-led QOL assessment studies to date in Japan have suffered from insufficient knowledge and understanding of the diverse factors contributing to QOL, thereby contributing to a dearth of quality studies. Given this background, the Japanese Breast Cancer Society has established a Task Force for the development of guidelines to properly conduct QOL assessment studies. The present article reports the results of a large-scale systematic overview of QOL assessment studies for breast cancer patients that was undertaken as one part of this project.


METHODS
Six databases were used in this overview: MEDLINE, CINAHL, CANCERLIT, EMBASE, PsychINFO, and Japan Centra Revuo Medicina. The search period was 1982-1999 for CINAHL, and 1990-1999 for the others. Following a check of the titles, important information was recorded on relevance and data collection forms.


RESULTS
A systematic search was conducted of the literature on QOL assessment studies for breast cancer patients, and 1,954 articles were extracted from a check of titles. Using the relevance and data collection forms, the number of articles was further narrowed to 126. These articles were then classified according to the type and design of the study, the number of QOL and psychological measures used, frequency of use of each measure, and study focus and type of intervention. The results were then compiled.


CONCLUSIONS
To date there have been almost no appropriate systematic overviews or guidelines issued for QOL assessment studies related to breast cancer, even on the international level. The results of the present study may contribute high-quality QOL information for evidence-based medicine, as it continues to gain global prevalence.
Institute for Scientific Research of Stress, Public Health Research Foundation, Ochanomizu Oyaide Building 4F, 1-9-5 Yushima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0034, Japan.
Kojiro
K
Shimozuma
Takahiro
T
Okamoto
Noriyuki
N
Katsumata
Michiko
M
Koike
Katsuhiro
K
Tanaka
Shozo
S
Osumi
Mitsue
M
Saito
Naoto
N
Shikama
Takanori
T
Watanabe
Michihide
M
Mitsumori
Chikako
C
Yamauchi
Akinori
A
Hisashige
D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000367:Age Factors; D000971:Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols / Q000008:administration & dosage; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan; D008408:Mastectomy / Q000379:methods; D011788:Quality of Life; D018714:Radiotherapy, Adjuvant; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018434:Sickness Impact Profile; D013315:Stress, Psychological