Breast Cancer and Lifestyle Factors: Umbrella Review

Lifestyle factors play a major role in the risk of breast cancer. This review aimed to examine the size of the effect of select lifestyle factors on risk for breast cancer and assess the quality of existing evidence. The authors performed an umbrella review of systematic reviews. The authors found an increased risk for breast cancer associated with obesity, alcohol intake, and smoking and a decreased risk due to physical activity. The evidence for sleep disruption and duration indicates risk for breast cancer, but it is limited in size, statistical significance, and quality of evidence.

Systematic review and meta-analysis examining the effects of midwife care on cesarean birth

BACKGROUND

The increasing number of unnecessary cesarean births is a cause for concern and may be addressed by increasing access to midwifery care. The objective of this review was to assess the effect of midwifery care on the likelihood of cesarean births.

METHODS

We searched five databases from the beginning of records through May 2020. We included observational studies that reported odds ratios or data allowing the calculation of odds ratios of cesarean birth for births with and without midwife involvement in care or presence at the institution. Standard inverse-variance random-effects meta-analysis was used to generate overall odds ratios (ORs).

RESULTS

We observed a significantly lower likelihood of cesarean birth in midwife-led care, midwife-attended births, among those who received instruction pre-birth from midwives, and within institutions with a midwifery presence.

CONCLUSIONS

Care from midwives reduces the likelihood of cesarean birth in all the analyses, perhaps due to their greater preference and skill for physiologic births. Increased use of midwives in maternal care can reduce cesarean births and should be further researched and implemented broadly, potentially as the default modality in maternal care.

Clinical Decision-Making for Appendectomy in Kosovo: A Conjoint Analysis

Objective: The objective was to investigate the association of clinical attributes with decision making for performing appendectomy and making preoperative preparations for appendectomy. Method: A conjoint analysis with 17 clinical scenarios was executed with surgeons employed at public hospitals in Kosovo. Setting: The study was conducted at two public hospitals in Kosovo that have benefited from quality-improvement interventions. Participants: The participants included 22 surgeons. Outcome measures: The primary outcome was the overall effect of clinical attributes on the decision to perform appendectomy and make the preoperative preparations for appendectomy. Results: In the regression analyses, several attributes demonstrated statistically significant effects on the clinical decision to perform appendectomy and on the practice of preoperative preparation. Conclusions: We found that several factors influenced the decision to perform appendectomy and the practices for preoperative preparation. Nevertheless, the small sample size limited our efforts to interpret the results. These findings could assist Kosovo in the design and implementation of future similar studies and in fostering quality improvement measures that address clinical decision making and the lack of process standardization in the delivery of surgical care.

Caesarean sections in teaching hospitals: systematic review and meta-analysis of hospitals in 22 countries

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study is to determine the odds of caesarean section in all births in teaching hospitals as compared with non-teaching hospitals.

SETTING

Over 3600 teaching and non-teaching hospitals in 22 countries. We searched CINAHL, The Cochrane Library, PubMed, sciELO, Scopus and Web of Science from the beginning of records until May 2020.

PARTICIPANTS

Women at birth. Over 18.5 million births.

INTERVENTION

Caesarean section.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

The primary outcome measures are the adjusted OR of caesarean section in a variety of teaching hospital comparisons. The secondary outcome is the crude OR of caesarean section in a variety of teaching hospital comparisons.

RESULTS

In adjusted analyses, we found that university hospitals have lower odds than non-teaching hospitals (OR=0.66, 95% CI 0.56 to 0.78) and other teaching hospitals (OR=0.46, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.89), and no significant difference with unspecified teaching status hospitals (OR=0.92, 95% CI 0.80 to 1.05, τ2=0.009). Other teaching hospitals had higher odds than non-teaching hospitals (OR=1.23, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.35). Comparison between unspecified teaching hospitals and non-teaching hospitals (OR=0.91, 95% CI 0.50 to 1.65, τ2=1.007) and unspecified hospitals (OR=0.95, 95% CI 0.76 to 1.20), τ2<0.001) showed no significant difference. While the main analysis in larger sized groups of analysed studies reveals no effect between hospitals, subgroup analyses show that teaching hospitals carry out fewer caesarean sections in several countries, for several study populations and population characteristics.

CONCLUSIONS

With smaller sample of participants and studies, in clearly defined hospitals categories under comparison, we see that university hospitals have lower odds for caesarean. With larger sample size and number of studies, as well as less clearly defined categories of hospitals, we see no significant difference in the likelihood of caesarean sections between teaching and non-teaching hospitals. Nevertheless, even in groups with no significant effect, teaching hospitals have a lower or higher likelihood of caesarean sections in several analysed subgroups. Therefore, we recommend a more precise examination of forces sustaining these trends.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42020158437.