The effect of therapeutic- supportive interventions on body image in women with breast cancer: A Systematic Review

Patients with breast cancer get negative perceptions of body image, which affects their marital relationships. There are a lot of related studies and, thus, it is possible to provide a complete, exhaustive summary of current literature relevant to these articles. Therefore, the aim of this study was to review the effects of therapeutic-supportive interventions on body image in patients with breast cancer using a systematic review design.
In this systematic review study, Electronic databases including Google Scholar, Web of Sciences, Science Direct, Cochrane library, ProQuest, Scopus, and PubMed [including Medline]
were searched for retrieving articles published between 1990 and 2016 during July to September 2016. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 9 studies remained for assessing their quality which were finally evaluated by using a Jadad scale.This study with the design code 224/95 and IR.MAZUMS.
REC.95.S.122. was registered in the Student Committee.
Among 9 articles in this systematic review, 6 articles were of semi-experimental type and the remaining 3 articles were clinical trial studies. Results of 5 articles showed that intervention has improved body image in the patients. In this study, the results were organized on two-Category of primary outcome (impact of interventions on body image) and secondary outcome (age, assessment tool, duration of followup and treatment). Assessment of studies revealed that the objectives of studies, explaining of results, inclusion and exclusion criteria were the strength points of these articles. Describing of blinding and attrition were also the weaknesses points of these studies.
Considering some disagreements between studies, further studies are needed with most efficient ways.