Table 4 Eligibility criteria for key question 4 (patient values and preferences)
Criteria | Inclusion | Exclusion |
|---|---|---|
Population | Individuals with a cervix, or who have had their cervix removed as part of treatment for cervical cancer, 15 years of age and older (patients and the general public) Population subgroups: – Age (15–19, 20–24, 25–29, 30–69, 70+) – Risk groups: immunocompromised (e.g. HIV, organ transplantation, chemotherapy or chronic use of corticosteroids, use of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs or biologics), risk behaviours (e.g. early sexual debut, women who have sex with women, individuals who have multiple sexual partners, smoking), Indigenous peoples, rural populations, immigrants, lower SES, pregnant individuals, HPV-vaccinated populations – Previous screening history (regular as per guidance vs. not regular (under) vs. never-screened) |  |
Exposures | – Experience with critical outcome(s) related to screening or, – Exposure to clinical scenarios or information about potential critical outcomes and/or estimates of effect on outcome risks from screening, or – No experience or exposure to information about outcomes, but authors are soliciting probability trade-offs or ratings of different potential critical outcomes (e.g. number of biopsies acceptable to prevent one early diagnosis of invasive cervical cancer) – Focus of study is on consideration of possible, or assessment of experienced, outcomes from screening. Exposure moderators: differing descriptions or experience of outcomes in terms of stage, treatments received, severity, time since diagnosis (immediate vs. first year vs. later years); number of outcomes considered; differing estimates of magnitudes of effect from screening (if applicable) | Apart from studies with direct (e.g. time-trade off) or indirect (e.g. based on EQ-5D) measurement of heath state utilities, participants need to consider at least one outcome that may be a harm from screening (e.g. false positives, overdiagnosis [e.g. hrHPV+ but never will get cancer], increased CIN 2+ detection). Focus on the harms from management of lesions or cancer. |
Comparisons | – Different critical outcome or groups of outcomes (e.g. critical benefits vs. harms) – Healthy state without outcome (for utility studies) – No comparison (for utility studies) – No or another intervention, if applicable for interpreting outcome importance, i.e. no screening, another screening strategy (e.g. having different magnitude of effects), no information (e.g. in studies using decision aids). When only one arm (e.g. receiving decision aid) of a comparative study is used for interpreting data on patient preferences, the study will be classified as a non-comparative study. |  |
Outcomes | a) Utility values/weights for the potential outcomes from screening b) Non-utility, quantitative information about relative importance of different outcomes (e.g. rating scales using ordinal or interval variables, ranking; preference for or against screening [screening attendance, intentions, or acceptance] or preferred screening strategy based on different outcome risk descriptions, strength of associations about outcome ratings with screening behaviours or intentions) c) Qualitative information indicating relative importance between outcomes d) Rank-order of importance of outcomes, based on data from a) to c) above, as applicable. Data must relate to the outcomes considered critical to the Task Force. Outcome groupings a) to c) above will be included in a hierarchical manner for each critical screening outcome. | Â |
Timing | Follow-up duration: any or none | Â |
Setting | Any setting in Very High Human Development Index countries | Â |
Study design and publication status | Any quantitative or qualitative study design using the methods described below: – Utility values/weights measured directly using time trade-offa, standard gambleb, visual analogue scales, conjoint analysis with choice experiments or probability trade-offs – Utility values/weights measured or estimated indirectly, e.g. from transforming several health state domains from multi-attribute utility indexes such as EQ-5D to utilities using general population preferences, including mapping from generic or disease-specific health-related quality of life instruments – Non-utility, quantitative information about relative importance of different outcomes, e.g. rating scales using ordinal or interval variables, ranking; preference for or against screening (screening attendance, intentions, or acceptance) or preferred screening strategy based on different outcome risk descriptions, strength of associations about outcome ratings with screening behaviours or intentions) – Qualitative information indicating relative importance between benefits and harms – Rank-order of importance of outcomes | Conference proceedings; government reports; editorials |
Language | English or French | Â |
Publication date | 2000–present |  |