Strategies to promote the dissemination of psychosocial digital health resources for those affected by cancer: scoping review

Purpose: The objective of this review is to map the evidence on dissemination strategies employed to promote awareness and uptake of psychosocial digital health resources for those affected by cancer while also addressing the barriers and facilitators to effective dissemination.

Methods: A scoping review was undertaken using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) protocol. A wide range of keywords was used to form search terms for four databases, namely MEDical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System onLINE (MEDLINE), Cumulated Index in Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Embase, and PsycInfo.

Results: We screened 5045 articles for inclusion after the initial automated removal of duplicate and ineligible items. A total of 4691 articles were excluded during title and abstract screening. A further 324 articles were excluded during the full-text screening stage. We included 30 articles in our analysis. Bibliometric analysis indicated that many low-to-middle-income countries are under-represented in the literature. Caregivers were seldom targeted in dissemination strategies. Other key themes emerging from our analysis include the need to close geographical, cultural, and digital divides and to increase the trust and credibility of interventions.

Conclusion: This paper presents the first review consolidating research on psychosocial digital resource dissemination targeting those affected by cancer. These findings are of relevance to both oncology experts and researchers, who may use this review to reflect on how best to disseminate developed digital resources to cancer-affected populations. When considering the dissemination of an online resource in the future, researchers should focus on creating co-designed digital interventions for caregivers and targeting more diverse populations using both traditional and digital dissemination materials.