Factors Associated With Fear Of Breast Cancer Among Survivors (Essay Sample)

FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH FEAR OF BREAST CANCER AMONG SURVIVORS
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The literature review articles were randomly searched across the PubMed and Medline databases. The whole process was done over the internet. The search criteria were done by putting specific search names for example breast cancer, into the search boxes of the databases so that to display the searched articles. The Boolean term AND was commonly used to enhance the display of more relevant data. Other than that Boolean term was only used to show specific articles that target specific object and narrow the number of articles to be displaced. For instance, combining the search terms breast cancer AND its harm will display results which shows the harms of breast cancer other than showing other aspects of breast cancer.
After searching several articles from the databases using different search terms Around 25 articles were identified from both databases. Pubmed provided the most articles which included 16 articles and Medline 9 articles. The difference of number in both databases was due to the fact that Medline database did not produce so many changes in the display of different articles when different search terms and Boolean term were used. This is the time where most of the articles were identified. However, each database produced more articles but not all articles were relevant to the study. Medline had so many articles but, most of them were published between the year 2000 up to 2010. This did not fit the inclusion criteria where the study only needed articles that were not older than five years old. However, the articles were used for the purpose of understanding only since they contained information related to the study. On the other hand, Pubmed database was highly updated since most of the articles were of the latest years including the year 2018. Additional searches were done from International Journal of Nursing databases where several articles were produced.
During identification, it was noted that most of the articles identified can only be read online in the databases since producing and downloading documents was not an option. After identifying articles from both databases, two articles were found to be the same and hence removed as duplicates. Around 25 articles were screened to check if they were consistent with the research. Screening included checking if they had an author or authors, year of publication, the general content of the article and checking if they were peer reviewed or not. At this juncture, 5 articles were excluded and only 20 articles remained.
The eligibility of the articles was also checked. Twenty articles remaining were all read across to check if they were eligible. Six articles were excluded at this point due to various reasons. This includes poor grammar use, lack of plain words to an extent the whole documents were not easily understood, poor graphics and the information in the document were not well organized. The 14 remaining articles qualified to be used in the literature review of which 8 of them consisted of qualitative synthesis and 6 quantitative analysis. Below is the prism flow chart of the whole process.
Prism Flow Diagram

PICO Strategy
P- Women who have been affected by breast cancer and are currently not. All ages included as far as they are breast cancer survivors. All races, ethnic groups, and cultures included.
I-Demonstrate all associated factors of fear of breast cancer among survivors
C- The difference of the effects among different communities, races and ethnic groups. What are different perceptions of cancer among survivors? Could it be the cancer survivors think they still have cancer? Could the psychological pain still be the same?
O-Delivering all available factors associated with fear in breast cancer survivors.
Search terms
Breast cancer, cancer, fear of cancer, fear of breast cancer, survivors of cancer, survivors of breast cancer, associated factors, fear factors, the harm of cancer, cancer treatment, physical fears, psychological fears, behavioral fears, breast cancer, surviving cancer, a population with cancer, cancer self-care, understanding cancer
The boolean term, AND was commonly used, an example is breast cancer AND fear factors.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
The inclusion criteria included all articles that were peer-reviewed and mostly published concerning breast cancer. This is due to the fact that most of published and peer-reviewed articles normally provide precise data. Other inclusion criteria included; latest articles not older than five years, articles with authors, articles about associated fear factors to breast cancer survivors, articles with a given study population and research title. The exclusion criteria included all articles that had no impact on the research topic, articles without authors, articles with insignificant knowledge, articles that had only theories and very little evidence.
The following are the final result of the final articles that were found of use in the research concerning factors associated with fear of breast cancer among survivors. Most of these articles are available online in the databases as the PDF files can only be purchased.
Blцdt, S., Kaiser, M., Adam, Y., Adami, S., Schultze, M., Mьller-Nordhorn, J. and Holmberg, C. (2018). Understanding the role of health information in patients’ experiences: secondary analysis of qualitative narrative interviews with people diagnosed with cancer in Germany. BMJ Open, 8(3),
Cho, D., Chu, Q. and Lu, Q. (2017). Associations among physical symptoms, fear of cancer recurrence, and emotional well-being among Chinese American breast cancer survivors: a path model. Supportive Care in Cancer.
Graells-Sans, A., Serral, G., and Puigpinуs-Riera, R. (2018). Social inequalities in quality of life in a cohort of women diagnosed with breast cancer in Barcelona (DAMA Cohort). Cancer Epidemiology, 54, pp.38-47.
Islam, T., Dahlui, M., Majid, H., Nahar, A., Mohd Taib, N. and Su, T. (2014). Factors associated with return to work of breast cancer survivors: a systematic review. BMC Public Health, 14(Suppl 3), p.S8.
Jefford, M., Ward, A., Lisy, K., Lacey, K., Emery, J., Glaser, A., Cross, H., Krishnasamy, M., McLachlan, S. and Bishop, J. (2017). Patient-reported outcomes in cancer survivors: a population-wide cross-sectional study. Supportive Care in Cancer, 25(10), pp.3171-3179.
Koutoukidis, D., Lopes, S., Fisher, A., Williams, K., Croker, H. and Beeken, R. (2018). Lifestyle ad...