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Health sciences librarians may inform women about their health and treatment options by guiding women to easily readable, authoritative, and reliable information sources, including Web information sites.

The objective of the research was to evaluate systematic reviews and meta-analyses appearing in library and information science (LIS) literature. LIS databases were searched to find systematic reviews and meta-analyses published during 1996 - 2006 in LIS journals. Seven systematic reviews and five meta-analyses were selected and methods applied (identification of studies, inclusion/exclusion criteria, quality assessment, data extraction, and synthesis) were reviewed. The evaluation indicates that all systematic reviews in LIS have been published on medical library or medical information topics. Searching conducted to identify studies for systematic reviews and meta-analyses is comprehensive. Inclusion/exclusion criteria and quality standards established in systematic reviews and meta-analyses are well developed; however, in most systematic reviews, the analysis is limited to percentages rather than inferential statistics. Analysis based on inferential statistics in systematic reviews will further improve the reviews. The meta-analyses published in LIS illustrate different approaches to conducting the synthesis.

A systematic review of literature on the types of information important to cancer patients was conducted. The review included 18 studies. A synthesis of the ranking of the importance attached to various types of information by patients in individual studies showed that information about the disease itself and information about the treatment that follows are the most important types. A review of factors affecting the need for a particular type of information found that younger patients attribute more importance to information about sexual concerns and physical attractiveness than older patients. This type of information, however, was ranked least important by cancer patients overall. Also, the review indicates that highly educated patients may be similar to less educated patients in the types of information they need. As for the impact of patient situations on the need for a specific type of information, patients who prefer to be active in decision-making during illness want more information about their illness. Although some evidence existed to indicate that patients who are closer in time to their diagnosis need to understand the disease by wanting more information about their illness, the stage of cancer does not affect the type of information needed.