Effect of culturally tailored education on attendance at mammography and the Papanicolaou test

1 | INTRODUCTION Breast and cervical cancer screening tools can detect cancer at early stages, when treatment is more effective and likely to succeed. (1) Public cancer screening programs using [...]
Objectives: To determine the effectiveness of culturally tailored education on attendance at breast and cervical cancer screening among ethnic minority women. Data Sources: Systematic database searches in Ovid MEDLINE, ProQuest, PubMed, PsycINFO, and Cochrane CENTRAL. Study Design: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of culturally tailored educational interventions to ethnic minority women in Western countries were investigated for a meta-analysis. RCTs that assessed attendance at mammography or the Papanicolaou test (Pap test) were eligible for inclusion. Data Collection Methods: Study characteristics and results were extracted separately. Independent raters assessed risk of bias by using Cochrane Collaboration's tool. Principal Findings: Seven RCTs (n = 4246) were included in the meta-analysis of mammography attendance, and four RCTs (n = 1750) were included in the meta-analysis of Pap test attendance. The effect of culturally tailored educational interventions on attendance at mammography was an increase of 18 percent (RR = 1.18,95% Cl, 1.091.28, P Conclusions: Interpreted within the limitations set by the low number of studies and substantial heterogeneity for the Pap test, findings from the current meta-analyses indicate that culturally tailored educational interventions may increase attendance of ethnic minority women at breast and cervical cancer screenings. There is a need for more studies, in particular RCTs conducted outside the United States, to determine if such findings are similar in other countries. KEYWORDS ethnic groups, health education, mammography, meta-analysis, Papanicolaou test