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Global health
Protocol
Psychiatric disorders among people with cancer in low- and lower-middle-income countries: study protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis
  1. Zoe J Walker1,2,
  2. Michael P Jones3,4,
  3. Arun V Ravindran1,2
  1. 1 Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  2. 2 Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  3. 3 Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  4. 4 Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  1. Correspondence to Arun V Ravindran; Arun.Ravindran{at}camh.ca

Abstract

Introduction Cancer is a rapidly growing public health problem in low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs). There is evidence from upper-income countries that comorbid mental illness is common and can adversely impact cancer outcomes. Little is known about this burden in LLMICs. This systematic review has two aims. The first is to review the prevalence and patterns of psychiatric comorbidity in adults with cancer in LLMICs. The second is to review psychiatric treatment outcomes in this population.

Methods and analysis The review will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. A systematic search of electronic databases (MEDLINE, PsycInfo, Embase and CINAHL) will be conducted. Studies will be included if they report the prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity, or if they evaluate psychiatric treatment outcomes, in adults with cancer living in LLMICs. The search will be limited to studies published in peer-reviewed journals between March 2002 and March 2017. The reference lists of included studies will be hand searched. Critical appraisal will be performed using Quality Assessment Tools from the National Institute of Health. Pooled prevalence meta-analysis is planned.

Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval is not required as no primary data will be collected. The results will be presented at conferences and published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Systematic review registration PROSPERO CRD42017057103.

  • mental health
  • Oncology
  • psychiatry
  • public health
  • global health
  • psycho-oncology

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 and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017043

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors ZJW and AVR conceived the study. ZJW registered with PROSPERO. MPJ assisted in protocol design. ZJW drafted the protocol. AVR and MPJ reviewed and edited the protocol. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript. ZJW is the guarantor.

    • Funding ZJW’s Fellowship at the University of Toronto has been funded by a New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry (NSWIOP) Special Training Fellowship grant. The NSWIOP is not involved in any other aspect of the project.

    • Competing interests None declared.

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