Current status of accurate prognostic awareness in advanced/terminally ill cancer patients: Systematic review and meta-regression analysis

Background:No systematic meta-analysis is available on the prevalence of cancer patients’ accurate prognostic awareness and differences in accurate prognostic awareness by publication year, region, assessment method, and service received.Aim:To examine the prevalence of advanced/terminal cancer patients’ accurate prognostic awareness and differences in accurate prognostic awareness by publication year, region, assessment method, and service received.Design:Systematic review and meta-analysis.Methods:MEDLINE, Embase, The Cochrane Library, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were systematically searched on accurate prognostic awareness in adult patients with advanced/terminal cancer (1990–2014). Pooled prevalences were calculated for accurate prognostic awareness by a random-effects model. Differences in weighted estimates of accurate prognostic awareness were compared by meta-regression.Results:In total, 34 articles were retrieved for systematic review and meta-analysis. At best, only about half of advanced/terminal canc...