Motivational Interviewing to Increase Physical Activity Behaviour in Cancer Patients

Summary

Physical activity is not only efficient for primary prevention of several cancer types, but it also plays an important role in cancer survivors. Physical activity after a cancer diagnosis has been associated with reduced overall and cancer-specific mortality. It has significant positive effects on physical fitness and several cancer-related symptoms including fatigue, sleep disturbance, depression and anxiety. The evidence is considerable and consistent for breast, colorectal and endometrial cancers. However, patients are generally insufficiently active, and participation rates in physical activity opportunities offered by specialized organizations are low. This pilot study will evaluate the feasibility, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of an intervention seeking to increase active lifestyle and physical activity participation of cancer patients. To encourage this behavioural change, motivational interviewing will be used, a patient-centred approach aimed at increasing the patients' motivation for a behavioural change through open-ended discussions.

Seventy patients with breast, colorectal or endometrial cancer will be recruited within a time period of 12 months. Patients will be randomly assigned to an intervention or a control group. The intervention group will receive standard care alongside 12 motivational interviewing sessions within 12 weeks. The control group will receive standard care only. Physical activity behaviour (3D-accelerometer) and physical fitness (cardiovascular and strength fitness) will be measured in the week preceding and following the intervention. Additionally, a subgroup from both study arms will be assessed 12 weeks after the completion of the intervention. The investigators hypothesize that sedentary time will decrease and time spent in moderate and vigorous physical activity, physical fitness and quality of life of cancer survivors will increase to a greater extent in the intervention group than in the control group. Furthermore, health-related quality of life and resource use (intervention and healthcare costs, out of pocket costs) will be measured to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the intervention.

Conditions

• Cancer, Breast
• Cancer of Colon
• Endometrial Cancer

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Motivational interviewing

the patients of the motivational interviewing group will receive 12 motivational interviewing sessions within 12 weeks: 2 face-to-face sessions and 10 phone call sessions. The first and the seventh motivational interviewing sessions will be face-to-face sessions. An intervention is considered valid if a minimum of 10 sessions has been completed. The face-to-face motivational interviewing sessions will be administered at the Luxembourg Institute of Health (Strassen, Luxembourg). They generally last up to 30 minutes, while the motivational interviewing phone calls generally last up to 15 minutes. Thereby, patients in the motivational interviewing group will receive a total of approximately 3.5 hours of contact time over a period of 12 weeks. Motivational interviewing techniques will explore self-assessed confidence, ambivalence, and personal values concerning changes in active lifestyle.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Fondation Cancer

  collaborator UNKNOWN

• Luxembourg Institute of Health

  lead OTHER_GOV

Principal Investigators

• Laurent Malisoux, PhD · Luxembourg Institute of Health

• Alexis Lion, PhD · Luxembourg Institute of Health

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

DOUBLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-07-06

Primary Completion

2019-02-28

Completion

2019-02-28

Countries

• Luxembourg

Study Locations