"women's health screening...incorporation into clinical practice guidelines is minimal"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24055587

Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2013 Sep 17. pii: S0002-9378(13)00962-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ajog.2013.09.021. [Epub ahead of print]

Influence of Qualitative Research on Women's Health Screening Guidelines.

Abadir AM, Lang A, Klein T, Abenhaim HA.

Source

Department of Undergraduate Medical Education, University of Ottawa.

Abstract

OBJECTIVES:

Considerable time and resources are allocated to carry out qualitative research. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the availability of qualitative research on women's health screening and assess its influence on screening practice guidelines in the United-States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

STUDY DESIGN:

Medline, CINHAL and WEB of Science databases were used to identify the availability of qualitative research conducted in the past 15 years on three different women's health screening topics: cervical cancer screening, breast cancer screening and prenatal first trimester screening. Key national practice guidelines on women's health screening were selected using the National Guideline Clearinghouse website. Bibliometric analysis was used to determine the frequency of qualitative references cited in the guidelines.

RESULTS:

A total of 272 qualitative research papers on women's health screening were identified; 109 on cervical cancer screening, 104 on breast cancer screening, and 59 on prenatal first trimester screening. The qualitative studies focused on health care provider perspectives as well as ethical, ethnographic, psychological and social issues surrounding screening. Fifteen national clinical practice guidelines on women's health screening were identified. A total of 943 references were cited, only 2 of which comprised of qualitative research cited by only 1 clinical practice guideline.

CONCLUSIONS:

While there is considerable qualitative research that has been carried out on women's health screening, its incorporation into clinical practice guidelines is minimal. Further exploration of the disconnect between the two is important for enhancing knowledge translation of qualitative research within clinical practice.