Palliative Care in Breast Cancer During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has harmed the provision of palliative care (PC) services for women with breast cancer due to all the restrictions that came along with the virus. Objective: To map the available evidence on the situation of PC in breast cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A scoping review was carried out based on the methodology proposed by the Joanna Briggs Institute. The search was conducted in nine databases, one electronic repository, and one library, using controlled vocabularies. Results: Twenty-nine articles and seven documents were included. The majority (11.4% each) were published in the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States, 38.9% addressed palliative radiotherapy (RT), and 47.2% consisted of recommendations. From the content analysis, five categories were obtained focused on the recommendations on changes in palliative treatment guidelines and the response of PC teams to the evolving crisis. Conclusions: The evidence pointed to the management of general PC, palliative RT, palliative chemotherapy, management of metastatic breast cancer, and use of technologies in palliative care. No recommendations were found to manage frequent symptoms in PC, indicating the need to develop primary studies that investigate these aspects in detail in this vulnerable group. Implications: The results contained in this document can provide professionals working in this field of care with a global view of how other teams have dealt with the pandemic, thereby identifying the best guidelines to apply in their reality, taking into account the clinical and social situation of each patient.

Telenursing in the sexual function of women with breast cancer: A study protocol

“…This tool has been used to educate patients and health professionals. [33,34] The clinical trial design has several significant strengths. The first is that the RCT is considered the gold standard of clinical research, allowing more reliable conclusions regarding the effectiveness of interventions.…”

Palliative care in the treatment of women with breast cancer: a scoping review protocol

“…The grey literature will be searched due to the flexibility of including grey literature in scoping reviews and the importance of understanding the role of PC in breast cancer treatment 35 36. Secondary searches will be conducted in a variety of other sources, including the British Library, Google Scholar, Preprints for Health Sciences (medRXiv), Open Grey, Institutional Repository for Information Sharing, ProQuest Global Dissertations & Theses and ClinicalTrials.gov trial register website, in addition to clinical practice guidelines, protocols and information available on the websites of recognised scientific societies.…”

Penerapan Kombinasi Telehealth pada Pasien Kanker: Literature Review

“…Penggunaan teleonkologi dapat meningkatkan akses dan kualitas dari segi perawatan pasien dengan kanker. Sudah banyak model-model keperawatan yang menggunakan model telehealth (Velasco Yanez et al, 2022).…”