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

Introduction: 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. Methods: 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. Results: 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. Conclusions: 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.