Article Text
Abstract
Objectives To identify available literature on prevalence, severity and contributing factors of scan-associated anxiety (‘scanxiety’) and interventions to reduce it.
Design Systematic scoping review.
Data sources Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, Ovid PsycINFO, Ovid Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Scopus, EBSCO CINAHL and PubMed up to July 2020.
Study selection Eligible studies recruited people having cancer-related non-invasive scans (including screening) and contained a quantitative assessment of scanxiety.
Data extraction Demographics and scanxiety outcomes were recorded, and data were summarised by descriptive statistics.
Results Of 26 693 citations, 57 studies were included across a range of scan types (mammogram: 26/57, 46%; positron-emission tomography: 14/57, 25%; CT: 14/57, 25%) and designs (observation: 47/57, 82%; intervention: 10/57, 18%). Eighty-one measurement tools were used to quantify prevalence and/or severity of scanxiety, including purpose-designed Likert scales (17/81, 21%); the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (14/81, 17%) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (9/81, 11%). Scanxiety prevalence ranged from 0% to 64% (above prespecified thresholds) or from 13% to 83% (‘any’ anxiety, if no threshold). Mean severity scores appeared low in almost all measures that quantitatively measured scanxiety (54/62, 87%), regardless of whether anxiety thresholds were prespecified. Moderate to severe scanxiety occurred in 4%–28% of people in studies using descriptive measures. Nine of 20 studies assessing scanxiety prescan and postscan reported significant postscan reduction in scanxiety. Lower education, smoking, higher levels of pain, higher perceived risk of cancer and diagnostic scans (vs screening scans) consistently correlated with higher scanxiety severity but not age, gender, ethnicity or marital status. Interventions included relaxation, distraction, education and psychological support. Six of 10 interventions showed a reduction in scanxiety.
Conclusions Prevalence and severity of scanxiety varied widely likely due to heterogeneous methods of measurement. A uniform approach to evaluating scanxiety will improve understanding of the phenomenon and help guide interventions.
- adult oncology
- diagnostic radiology
- anxiety disorders
Data availability statement
Data are available on reasonable request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplemental information. The additional data are the data extraction forms for each study.
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/.
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Data availability statement
Data are available on reasonable request. All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplemental information. The additional data are the data extraction forms for each study.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary Data
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Footnotes
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Contributors KTB, PB, BEK, HD and CB contributed to the concept and design of this review. KTB developed and implemented the search strategy. KTB and RL independently screened and reviewed titles, abstracts and full-text articles for inclusion. KTB and RL independently extracted data from the included studies. PB, BEK, HD and CB contributed content expertise to ensure clinically relevant interpretation of the data. KTB drafted the initial manuscript, and RL, PB, BEK, HD and CB reviewed and approved the manuscript prior to submission.
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.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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