Systematic Review: Barriers to Breast Cancer Screening in Arab Countries

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common type of cancer among women in the Arab World, which leads to high mortality rates and the spread of diseases throughout Arab countries. There are many barriers that prevent women from undergoing BC screening. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review was to understand and identify the various barriers to BCS among women living in the Arab world. This systematic review was conducted based on research papers obtained from the following databases: PubMed, Google Scholar, and Science Direct. Only studies in English Language were chosen. Which were conducted in the Arab World, published from 2012 to 2022, and discussed barriers from women’s perspectives. The articles included in this review were 3942 initial articles, 953 duplicate articles were excluded. The initial search results yielded about 2989 studies related to barriers that prevent women from having BCS. The articles that did not meet the criteria were excluded and this reduced the list to 106 articles. These articles were summarized their results and analyzed and were classified as 94% high quality and 6% medium. Barriers identified were fear and anxiety, lack of awareness, preoccupation, idea of shame, lack of family support, professional attitude, religious beliefs, and lack of health services. In conclusion, these obstacles played a major role in the spread of BC among Arab women, and therefore identifying and evaluating them helps to address and reduce them. Also, it is possible to improve and develop screening models and increase the number of women participating in BCS. Based on this, we recommend implementing awareness and educational plans for women about the importance of early detection of BC.