Barriers and facilitators for adopting healthy lifestyles in breast cancer survivors: a scoping review protocol

Abstract

Objective: This scoping review will identify barriers and facilitators for the adoption of 7 healthy lifestyle components by female breast cancer survivors. This will be achieved by mapping the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research recommendations and the Lifestyle Medicine pillars. Introduction: Adherence to healthy lifestyle components (including weight management, physical activity, healthy diet, restorative sleep, avoidance of risky substances, forming and maintaining healthy relationships, and stress management) may improve the quality of life of breast cancer survivors and reduce the risk of adverse patient outcomes. However, cancer survivors’ adherence to recommendations of multiple healthy lifestyle components is low, and decreases over time. Inclusion criteria: The review will consider peer-reviewed studies investigating barriers and facilitators for adopting any of the 7 healthy lifestyle components by female adult (18+) breast cancer survivors (ie, from the time of diagnosis), in community, hospital, and/or cancer care settings, without any geographical restrictions. All study designs, and articles published only in the English language, will be included. Methods: The review will follow the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. Databases to be searched will include MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), PsycINFO (Ovid), and the Cochrane Library databases. Articles published from 2007 to the present will be considered since this was the year in which the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research recommendations were published. Two independent reviewers will screen the retrieved articles and extract the data. Barriers and facilitators for each lifestyle component will be grouped according to the Theoretical Domain Framework. A narrative summary will explicate the charted data. Review registration number: This scoping review protocol was registered in Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/cn3va).