The impact of informing diagnosis on quality of life in patients with cancer: A protocol of systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally. More millions new cancer cases are diagnosed, and millions persons died due to cancer each year. There are different attitudes on disclosure of diagnosis to the patients with cancer. The current systematic reviews are qualitative, and indicate that there is limited evidence on the association between awareness of diagnosis and quality of life in patients with cancer. In this study, we aim to evaluate the effect of awareness of diagnosis on quality of life in patients with cancer by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis. METHODS: We will perform a comprehensive electronic search in the databases below: MEDLINE (via PubMed), EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PsycINFO, WEB OF SCIENCE, Chinese Biomedical Literature database, WANFANG database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure. The cohort studies focusing on the association between awareness of diagnosis and quality of life in patients with cancer will be included. The risk of bias for the included studies will be appraised using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale tool for cohort study. We will pool the effect estimates from the included studies to quantitatively present the strength of the association of interest. RESULTS: This study will present pooled effect estimates regarding the impact of informing diagnosis on quality of life in patients with cancer. CONCLUSION: This is the first quantitative systematic review which tends to provide modest evidence on the association between informing diagnosis and quality of life in patients with cacner. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42017060073.