Factors underlying treatment decision-making for localized prostate cancer in the U.S. and Canada: A scoping review using principal component analysis

The purpose of this research is to gather, collate, and identify key factors commonly studied in localized prostate cancer (LPC) treatment decision-making in Canada and the U.S. This scoping review uses five databases (Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL, AMED, and PsycInfo) to identify relevant articles using a list of inclusion and exclusion criteria applied by two reviewers. A list of topics describing the themes of the articles was extracted and key factors were identified using principal component analysis (PCA). A word cloud of titles and abstracts of the relevant articles was created to identify complementary results to the PCA. This review identified 77 relevant articles describing 32 topics related to LPC treatment decision-making. The PCA grouped these 32 topics into five key factors commonly studied in LPC treatment decision-making: 1) treatment type; 2) socioeconomic/demographic characteristics; 3) personal reasons for treatment choice; 4) psychology of treatment decision experience; and 5) level of involvement in the decision-making process. The word cloud identified common phrases that were complementary to the factors identified through the PCA. This research identifies several possible factors impacting LPC treatment decision-making. Further research needs to be completed to determine the impact that these factors have in the LPC treatment decision-making experience.