Problems in transition and quality of care: perspectives of breast cancer survivors.

PURPOSE: We conducted a qualitative study to explore breast cancer survivors' perceptions and attitudes about their current healthcare utilization, screening, and information needs. METHODS: We completed eight focus groups of breast cancer survivors. We included women, adult survivors, with an initial diagnosis of breast cancer in the year 2000, treated, and without a recurrence as per medical record. To analyze transcripts, we used grounded theory methods, wherein unexpected themes and direct answers emerged from consensus between co-coders. RESULTS: Focus groups included 33 participants, the majority of whom were white (84.8%), college-educated (66.7%), and covered by private medical insurance (75.7%) or Medicare (27.3%). Participants' perceptions and attitudes about care were framed in terms of personal experiences (including facing barriers to screening, feeling in limbo in the healthcare system, having problems with communication with and between physicians, confusion about symptoms, and using self-prescribe remedies), personal attitudes (including strong opinions about what survivorship means, concerns about recurrence, and changes in self-perception and agency), and social influences (including modeling others' behaviors, changes in social life, and listening to family). CONCLUSION: Survivorship attitudes, recurrence fears, memories, and self-perceptions were influential personal factors in addition to self-efficacy. Solutions such as providing a cancer treatment summary might resolve many of the problems by consolidating and making readily available the numerous medical history and recommendations that survivors accrue over time, switching from provider to provider. Clinicians must also implement communication changes in their interactions with patients to enhance positive attitudes and behaviors, and leverage social influences.

Poor reporting of search strategy and conflict of interest in over 250 narrative and systematic reviews of two biologic agents in arthritis: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the quality of reviews about etanercept (ETN) and infliximab (IFX), two biologic treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). STUDY DESIGN: A comprehensive, systematic review, including searches of MEDLINE, EMBASE, and other electronic databases and hand-searches for published and unpublished literature. Two raters independently examined each article and identified systematic reviews as those including either a description of: (1) sources for identification and data retrieval; or (2) search strategy. They applied the quality of reporting of meta-analyses (QUOROM) instrument to systematic reviews. RESULTS: Of 3,620 total citations, 281 were identified as reviews. Of these, 26 (9%) qualified as systematic rather than narrative. Overall, few reviews described selection of sources, critical appraisal, or quantitative summary or synthesis. Systematic reviews most often failed to explain validity assessment. Several articles did not disclose authors' participation in industry-funded clinical trials. Most reviews published in high impact factor and rheumatology journals did not meet many quality standards. Significant associations existed between review type (narrative vs. systematic) and reported funding (P=0.05), conflicts of interest (P=0.005), and country of publication (P<0.0001). CONCLUSION: More than 90% of the published reviews were narrative and did not report methods and conflicts of interest in sufficient detail, raising concerns about selection and reporting bias.