Article

This focused review examines randomized controlled studies included by
the term "cancer rehabilitation" in PubMed. The research questions concern the
type of interventions performed and their methodological quality. DESIGN: Using
the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms: neoplasm AND rehabilitation, all
articles with randomized controlled studies that included adult cancer patients,
written in English, were extracted from PubMed. Papers covering physical exercise, psychiatric/psychological treatment or social support only were
excluded as they had been reviewed recently. Abstracts and papers were assessed
by 3 pairs of reviewers, and descriptive information was extracted
systematically. Methodological quality was rated on a 10-item index scale, and
the cut-off for acceptable quality was set at >/= 8. RESULTS: A total of 132
(19%) of the 683 identified papers met the eligibility criteria and were assessed
in detail. The papers were grouped into 5 thematic categories: 44 physical; 15
art and expressive; 47 psycho-educative; 21 emotionally supportive; and 5 others.
Good quality of design was observed in 32 studies, 18 of them uni-dimensional and
14 multi-dimensional. CONCLUSION: Published randomized controlled studies on
cancer rehabilitation are heterogeneous in terms of content and samples, and are
mostly characterized by suboptimal design quality. Future studies should be more
specific and well-designed with sufficient statistical strength.

Langue : ANGLAIS