Background
Timely access to appropriate healthcare facilities has been known to reduce the incidence and death rates for cancer. To ensure the timely adherence to cancer diagnostic or treatment services, patient navigation program was created and its ...
Background
Timely access to appropriate healthcare facilities has been known to reduce the incidence and death rates for cancer. To ensure the timely adherence to cancer diagnostic or treatment services, patient navigation program was created and its implementation was successful. However, controversies still remain until now on who should be playing the role of patient navigators. In addition, despite the phase between screening to the first treatment visit may be the most critical period for most cancer patients to reduce death rates, only one systematic review looked at the effects of patient navigation program during this period.
Objectives
The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to provide the evidence of the effects of nurse-led patient navigation on individuals transitioning from cancer screening to the treatment phase.
Methods
The literature search was conducted using eleven electronic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane CENTRAL, EMBASE, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, PsycInfo, KoreaMed, KISS, RISS, and DBPIA). Two reviewers independently screened and selected eligible studies, extracted data, and evaluated quality of study designs using appropriate assessment tools. For continuous data, effect sizes were reported with Hedges’s g and 95% confidence interval. Effect sizes for dichotomous data were calculated with relative ratio. Fixed effect model was used if I2 value, a statistical measurement for heterogeneity, was less than 50%. Otherwise, random effect model was used.
Results
Nine studies were included in the systematic review, and eight studies were included in the meta-analysis. Three studies were randomized controlled trials and the remaining six studies were non-randomized trials. Overall risk of bias was moderately fair. Nurse-led patient navigation program had favorable effects on reducing waiting times between screening to the first treatment visits (g = -0.359, 95% CI = -0.493 to -0.224), screening to diagnosis (g = -0.260, 95% CI = -0.384 to -0.135), and diagnosis to the first treatment visits (g = -0.249, 95% CI = -0.495 to -0.003). The nurse navigators also increased the rates of access to cancer diagnostic services (RR =1.146, 95% CI = 1.013 to 1.296). However, the effects on anxiety was not favorable to nurse navigators (g = 0.095, 95% CI = -0.144 to 0.334). Study participants from individual studies also reported high satisfaction level to nurse-led patient navigation programs.
Conclusion
Nurse navigators had a potential on reducing timeliness of care and increasing adherence rates and satisfaction level to care, but no sufficient evidence was identified on improving psychological outcomes. Further studies with rigorous study designs are needed in identifying the effectiveness of nurse-led navigation programs and the mechanisms of how nurse navigators may enhance psychological outcomes.