A systematic scoping review will be conducted to map the evidence on
- the prevalence of NSSEs after early treatment PCa, and
- summarise the literature on the use of questionnaires in the screening of NSSE after early treatment for PCa.
The scoping review will follow the five steps described by Arksey and O’Malley (10) that include the following;
- Identifying the research question
- Identifying relevant studies
- Study selection
- Charting the data
- Collating, summarising and reporting on the data
Quality assessment of each of the included primary studies will be done as guided Levac et al. (11)
Identifying the research question
This review aims to identify current academic literature on the NSSE after men have undergone early treatment for PCa. This early treatment includes radical prostatectomy surgery and radiation therapy.
The research questions are as follows:
Identifying relevant studies
A search will be conducted for published and unpublished (grey) literature to identify eligible studies in the following electronic databases: PubMed, Science Direct and Google Scholar databases. We will also include relevant studies found in citations and reference lists of included articles. The search will include publications available in English and published between January 2009 and December 2019.
Eligibility criteria
The Population Concept Context (PCC) framework will inform the eligibility of the research question, as illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1: The PCC framework
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Criteria
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Determinants
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P
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Population
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Men who received surgical and non-surgical treatment following early PCa diagnosis
- Surgical treatment (radical prostatectomy surgery)
- Non-surgical treatment (radiation therapy)
|
C
|
Concept
|
Neglected sexual side effects (NSSE)
- Anejaculation
- Orgasmic Pain
- Orgasmic Dysfunction
- Climacturia
- Urinary Incontinence form Sexual Stimulation
- Peyronies Disease
- Penile Length Shortening
|
C
|
Context
|
Prevalence of NSSE
Questionnaires used to screen for the prevalence NSSE.
|
Boolean terms (AND, OR) and Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) will be used, as indicated in Table 2. The search results will be captured on an Excel spreadsheet where the duplicates will be removed. The selected studies will be screened against the eligibility criteria. The study search strategy was piloted to determine the appropriateness and feasibility of conducting this study, and the results are represented in Table 2.
Table 2 Pilot database search results
Keyword search
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Date of search
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Search Engine used
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No. of publications retrieved
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(Orgas* OR Penil* OR Climacturia (MeSH Terms) OR Dysorgasmia (MeSH Terms) OR anejaculation (MeSH Terms) OR Peyronie OR neglected AND [prostate cancer (MeSH Terms) OR Prostatectomy (MeSH Terms) ]
|
1 September 2019
|
Pubmed
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152
|
Selection of eligible studies
A set of eligibility criteria was developed to ensure that the included studies are relevant to address the research question. The results of the databases will be combined into one Excel spreadsheet after applying the search parameters. The eligibility criteria were developed to ensure that selected studies contain relevant information to answer the review questions.
The study's inclusion and exclusion criteria are summarised in Table 3.
Table 3
The inclusion criteria
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The exclusion criteria
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Only primary studies that present evidence on:
- The prevalence of NSSE after 3early stage PCa treatment
- The use of questionnaires to screen for the prevalence of NSSE after early-stage PCa treatment
- Original studies available in English and published between 1 January 2009-31 December 2019.
|
- Review articles
- Non-peer reviewed articles (e.g. books, magazines, policy briefs.
- Commentaries, editorials, program evaluations and letters.
- Publications on sexual dysfunction not relating to the prevalence and the use of questionnaires to screen for NSSE after early PCa treatment.
- Studies outside the period of interest and studies not available in English.
|
Charting the data
The information will be extracted and organised using a data charting form. Data will be processed so that the relevant information can be summarised to answer the research questions. The data charting tool, as illustrated in Table 3, will be used by a second reviewer to validate all the information.
Table 3 Data charting form included information on:
Author, date and reference
Aims and research questions
Geographical setting
Study Population
Study design
Number of participants
Period post-PCa investigated
Prevalence of NSSE
Reported use of Questionnaire to Screen for NSSE after PCa
Quality of the study
Quality Appraisal
An electronic version of the Mixed Method Appraisal Tool (MMAT) (14) will be adapted to assess the quality of the included studies. The study designs included in this scoping review will include qualitative, quantitative descriptive and mixed methods studies. The specific criteria to determine the appropriateness of each included study is outlined in Appendix 1.
Two reviewers will assign a score to assess each article that will assess the appropriateness of the study aims and its relevance for inclusion on the review. The overall quality for each included study will be calculated according to the following MMAT guidelines (score = number of criteria met/total score in each domain). 1 point will be given for each question, and a total score out of 5 will be calculated. The calculation will be presented as a percentage which correlates to the degree to which the identified was assessed to provide relevant information to answer the research question (Appendix 1).
The results will use the following descriptors.
- Very poor quality (20%) where minimal criteria are met
- Poor quality (40%) where less than half the criteria are not met
- Fair quality (60%) where just more than half the criteria are met
- Good quality (80%) where most of the criteria are met
- Excellent quality (100%) all criteria are met.
The overall quality of a combination of components cannot be more than its weakest component when it comes to mixed-methods studies, making the overall score equal to the lowest-scoring component (14).
Collating, summarising and reporting on the data
The collected data will firstly be reported by using descriptive statistics about i) the geographical setting of studies, ii) study populations, iii) study designs, iv) number of participants, v) period post-PCa investigated, vi) prevalence of NSSE, vii) reported use of a questionnaire and viii) quality of the studies.
Secondly, the findings of this scoping review will be analysed using a content analysis approach of the themes emerging from the extracted data. The themes will be collated to answer each research question.
The review team will discuss findings, resolve issues and finalise findings. The review team will analyse the implications of the findings in relation to the study aims and further research in the field.