Breast Cancer Screening Barriers from the Womans Perspective: a Meta-synthesis.
BACKGROUND
The principal aim of health service providers in the field of breast cancer is to detect and treat lesions at an appropriate time. Therefore, identification of barriers to screening can be very helpful. The present study aimed to systematically review the qualitative studies for extracting and reporting the barriers of screening for breast cancer from the womans perspective.


METHODS
In this systematic review; Pubmed, Google Scholar, Ovid Scopus, Cochrane Library, Iranmedex, and SID were searched using the keywords: screening barriers, cancer, qualitative studies, breast and their Persian equivalents, and the needed data were extracted and analyzed using an extraction table. To assess the quality of the studies, the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool was used.


RESULTS
From 2,134 related articles that were found, 21 articles were eventually included in the study. The most important barriers from the point of view of 1,084 women 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 for getting an appointment, language problems, and previous negative experiences. Articles' assessment score was 68.9.


CONCLUSIONS
Increasing women's knowledge, reducing the costs of screening services, cultural promotion for screening, presenting less painful methods, changing beliefs of health service providers, provision of privacy for giving service, decreasing the waiting time, and providing high quality services in a respectful manner can be effective ways to increase breast cancer screening.
Iranian Center of Excellence in Health Management, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran E-mail : dr_ahmad_ mosavi@yahoo.com.
Saber
S
Azami-Aghdash
Morteza
M
Ghojazadeh
Sepideh Gareh
SG
Sheyklo
Amin
A
Daemi
Kasra
K
Kolahdouzan
Mohammad
M
Mohseni
Ahmad
A
Moosavi
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003144:Communication Barriers; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer; D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D005102:Health Expenditures; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D036301:Qualitative Research; D014930:Women