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Public health
Protocol
Defining timeliness in care for patients with lung cancer: protocol for a scoping review
  1. Adnan Ansar1,
  2. Virginia Lewis2,
  3. Christine Faye McDonald3,
  4. Chaojie Liu4,
  5. Aziz Rahman5,6
  1. 1College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. 2Australian Institute for Primary Care and Aging, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
  3. 3Respiratory and Sleep Medicine, Austin Health, Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia
  4. 4School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
  5. 5School of Health, Federation University Australia, Berwick, Victoria, Australia
  6. 6School of Nursing and Midwifery, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  1. Correspondence to Dr Adnan Ansar; ansar.a{at}students.latrobe.edu.au

Abstract

Introduction Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, and lung cancer is the single leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. Early diagnosis of lung cancer is the key to better prognosis and longer survival. While there are substantial literature reporting delays in cancer diagnosis, there is a lack of consensus in the definitions and terms used to describe ‘delay’ in the treatment pathway. The aim of this scoping review is to identify and critically synthesise the operational definitions and terminologies used to describe the timely initiation of care and consequent treatments over the care pathway for patients with lung cancer. This scoping review will also compare how timeliness was operationalised in Western and Asian countries.

Methods and analysis The scoping review will use the methodology described by Arksey and O’Malley and endorsed by the Joanna Briggs Institute. MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and PsycINFO electronic databases will be searched. Grey literature sources and the reference lists of key studies will be used to identify additional relevant studies. The scoping review will include all studies, irrespective of study methodology and quality. Two reviewers will independently screen all titles and abstracts to identify eligible studies for inclusion. The full texts of identified studies will be further examined and charted using a data extraction form. A narrative synthesis will be performed to assess and categorise available definitions of timeliness.

Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval is not needed as this scoping review will be reviewing already published articles. The results produced from this review will be submitted to a scientific peer-reviewed journal for publication and will be presented at scientific meetings.

  • respiratory tract tumours
  • protocols & guidelines
  • preventive medicine
  • public health
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-039660

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors AA generated the idea, developed the research questions and study methods, conceptualised the review approach and developed the manuscript. AR, VL, CFMcD and CL contributed to finalising the study design and research questions and supervised the manuscript preparation. All authors provided detailed comments on earlier drafts and approved this manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.