Prevalence and risk factors of depression in patients with lung cancer: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

INTRODUCTION: Patients with lung cancer often experience heavy psychological distress, especially depression, which results in poorer quality of life, shorter survival time and greater mortality. Our aim is to summarise data on the prevalence and risk factors of depression in patients with lung cancer. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will search PubMed, EMBASE, MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang and Chinese Biomedicine Literature Database (SinoMed) for studies on the prevalence and risk factors of depression in patients with lung cancer, which should be published from 1 January 1975 to 25 November 2018 in English/Chinese. Two reviewers will independently screen studies, extract data and assess the risk of bias. We will use RevMan V.5.0 and STATA V.12.0 software for statistical analysis. The I² test will be used to identify the extent of heterogeneity. Publication bias will be assessed by generating a funnel plot and performing the Begg and Egger test. The quality of the systematic review will be evaluated using the AMSTAR (‘A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews’) criteria and ‘The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation’. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Since this is a review involving analysis of publicly available data, ethical approval is not required. The final results of this study will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42018118167.