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% CI, 1.09-1.28, P < .001), with low heterogeneity (I2 = 30.0, P = .237), and a 54 percent increase at the Pap test (RR = 1.54, 95% CI, 1.14-2.09, P = .005), with substantial heterogeneity (I2 = 75.9%, P = .001).
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: Papanicolaou test; ethnic groups; health education; mammography; meta-analysis.
© 2020 The Authors. Health Services Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Health Research and Educational Trust.