Table 3 Table of characteristics of included quantitative studies of health professionals’ perceptions of lung cancer
From: A systematic review of the impact of stigma and nihilism on lung cancer outcomes
Study | Design (Level of evidence) | Health professionals | Study factors/Patient groups | Outcomes | Comments and quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jennens 2004, Australia | Cross sectional | All Australian general, pulmonary and palliative care physicians, medical and radiation oncologists and thoracic surgeons (N = 1325) who saw at least one patient a year with metastatic lung cancer | Pessimism regarding the use of platinum based chemotherapy for stage IV NSCLC | Referrals for chemotherapy for stage IV NSCLC | Referrals to chemotherapy is included as part of the measure of pessimism |
Mailed self report survey (Level IV) | N = 544 | Study quality | |||
Response rate = 51% | Subject selection2 | ||||
Group comparabilityNA | |||||
Participation rate0 | |||||
Schroen 2000, USA | Cross sectional | Members of American College of Chest Physicians self reportedly practising either pulmonary medicine or thoracic surgery and treating adult lung cancer patients | Nihilism – underestimation of survival rate for resected stage I NSCLC | Beliefs re survival benefit for chemotherapy for various stages of NSCLC and radiotherapy for resected disease | Considered gender, treatment volumes, date of medical training completion |
Mailed self report survey (Level IV) | Randomly selected | Thoracic surgeons and pulmonologists see patients early in their diagnosis and refer patients to medical and radiation oncologists | |||
Pulmonologists N = 594 (response rate = 50%) | Study quality | ||||
Thoracic surgeons N = 416 (response rate = 52%) | Subject selection0 | ||||
Group comparability0 | |||||
Participation rate0 | |||||
Wassenaar 2007, Wisconsin USA | Cross sectional | All 1132 members of the American college of Physicians- Internal Medicine or the American College of Family Physicians in Wisconsin | Lung (NSCLC) vs breast cancer | Referrals to clinical oncologist | Physicians answering lung cancer questionnaire saw average 4.12 lung cancer patients/year. |
Mailed self report survey (Level IV) | Randomly allocated scenarios with lung or breast cancer patients, smokers or non smokers at stage 1B, M1 and end of life | Beliefs re survival benefits of chemotherapy for various cancer stages | Anticipated response rate at least 30% | ||
N = 672 | Sample size chosen to detect differences of at least 25% in the response patterns between disease groups with 80% power for a two-sided significance level of 5% | ||||
Response rate = 59.4% | Study quality | ||||
Subject selection1 | |||||
Group comparability2 | |||||
Participation rate0 |