Barriers and facilitators to routine breast cancer screening in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries: A Scoping Review

Background: Incidence of breast cancer has risen over time in most of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations, and it appears to strike GCC nationals and non-nationals at a younger age. This scoping review aims to explore the facilitators and barriers at the individual, system, and provider levels, systematically map services available to facilitate early detection, and suggest a new line of study. Method: PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and the Web of Science were searched. A total of 29 publications were identified, and the final list of publications (n = 17) was created based on inclusion criteria. Result: The individual level barriers are personal fear, embarrassment, social stigma, lack of significant knowledge and education about Breast Cancer (BC) and Breast cancer screening (BCS) process, poor individual screening behaviors and practices, in contrast, women with higher incomes, higher education levels, and a family history of BC are the facilitators and have better BCS practices. The system-level barriers are limited awareness of screening programs and a lack of specialized clinics. In contrast, the facilitators are motivated to participate in the BCS program, and cost reduction or free BCS services. The provider level barriers are insufficient education or advocacy by the provider, nonavailability of a female or an Arabic-speaking provider, which have resulted in low compliance with the BCS process; however, the facilitator was health education by the provider. Conclusion: This review identified that the general public's knowledge of BC is comparatively poor. GCC nations require additional community-wide health promotion activities, public awareness campaigns, and programs that improve patient-physician relations. Keywords Gulf Cooperation Council, Barriers, Facilitators, Breast cancer screening, Perception. Published by WisdomGale.

Keywords: Gulf Cooperation Council, Barriers, Facilitators, Breast cancer screening, Perception..