Improving cancer risk understanding: a systematic review of educational interventions for people with, or at high risk of, cancer — ASN Events
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Improving cancer risk understanding: a systematic review of educational interventions for people with, or at high risk of, cancer (#830)

Mbathio Dieng 1 , Nadine A Kasparian 2 3 , Caroline Watts 1 , Rachael Morton 4 , Graham J Mann 5 , Anne Cust 1
  1. Cancer Epidemiology and Services Research , University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  2. School of Women's and Children's Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  3. Heart Centre for Children, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  4. Sydney School of Public Health , University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  5. Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Introduction: Understanding of cancer risk has been found to be theoretically and empirically relevant in motivating cancer screening and risk reduction behaviours. Risk perceptions have also been found to be associated with health-related quality of life, including psychological stress, psychological adjustment and health behaviours. Despite its importance, subjective perceptions of personal cancer risk have been shown to be sometimes relatively resistant to change.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness and quality of educational interventions specifically developed to improve participants’ understanding of cancer risk, we conducted a systematic review of published educational interventions with a focus on risk perception.

 Methods: Randomised and non-randomised trials and prospective studies were identified via Medline, PsycINFO, Embase, Amed and CINAHL databases from 1806 to April 2012, and evaluated according to predetermined criteria. A total of 2,701 articles were identified after the removal of duplicates, with 2,508 articles excluded after title and abstract screening by two reviewers. A total of 181 articles were fully reviewed to assess eligibility. The methodological quality of the included Studies was assessed using two tools: the Quality Assessment Scoring for prospective studies and the Cochrane collaboration tool for assessing risk of bias for randomised controlled trial.

Results: A total of 35 studies met inclusion criteria, including six RCTs and 29 prospective studies. Most of the interventions (n=20) examined risk perceptions in the context of genetic counselling for breast, ovarian or colorectal cancer. Most interventions reported only modest increases in the accuracy of perceived risk. I will also present the strengths and weaknesses of the interventions.

 Conclusions: There are few interventions aiming to improve cancer risk perception in cancers other than breast and ovarian. I will discuss the usefulness of these educational interventions for different clinical and research contexts, and the challenges for future research.