Women with physical disabilities (WWPDs) have lower screening rates for cervical cancer than the general population globally. This scoping review aims to define the type of studies and content of studies currently available to promote cervical cancer screening among WWPDs. It seeks to clarify the type of disabilities WWPDs have that lead to the poorest participation in cervical cancer screening and highlight how health care systems can address the disclosed gaps.
Methods:
We developed our scoping review in compliance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis extension for Scoping Review. We reviewed Ovid Medline, Scopus, and REHABDATA sources with librarian-created search strategies between August 2, 2021, and September 2023.
Results:
We identified 891 articles from OVID Medline, 1,237 from Scopus, and 27 from REHABDATA for 2,155 articles. After removing duplicates and articles with exclusion criteria, 17 articles remained for full review. Their study designs were limited to cohort and cross-sectional studies. The definition of disability was either self-described or a medical diagnosis. Eighty-two percent of the studies used secondary data sources, and nearly all came from high-income countries. Cervical cancer documentation was self-reported for some and medically linked for others, but all occurred in the physician’s office. No study described the cervical cancer screening technique. The severity of disability and the increasing age of the WWPDs led to less screening.
Conclusions:
The gaps identified included the need for studies to address self-sampling for primary HPV testing for WWPDs for future increases in cervical cancer screening.
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