Motivational Interviewing With Parents to Adopt and Maintain Physical Activity

Summary

Cancer-related fatigue is the most commonly reported symptom among children with cancer and its effect is long-lasting, remaining for years after treatment.Childhood cancer patients undergo chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy that impairs their normal body tissue and fitness. Consequently, cardiorespiratory function and muscle strength decrease, and fatigue is inevitable. More importantly, these complications do not disappear, but continue for months or even years after completion of therapy.

Increasing concern has been placed on the benefits of regular physical activity (PA) among young cancer patients to improve cardiovascular fitness, ameliorate fatigue, and reduce some of the adverse effects of cancer and its treatment. Various studies have shown improvements in quality of life among young patients undergoing cancer treatment by performing regular physical activity. However, the literature review found that most young cancer patients maintain a lower level of PA than before their diagnosis.

A recent study revealed that the current PA levels of Hong Kong young cancer patients were markedly reduced when compared with their pre-morbid situation. Moreover, they were significantly less active in performing physical exercise, and reported lower levels of quality of life than their healthy counterparts. These findings reveal a crucial obligation of health care professionals to advocate the significance of regular PA among young cancer patients.

It is crucial for healthcare to correct misconceptions about PA among parents of children with cancer and advocate the principle of regular PA for their children, with the aim of enhancing their physical and psychological wellbeing and promoting their quality of life. Nevertheless, a large body of evidence has shown that education alone is insufficient or unlikely to change behavior, and healthcare professionals must therefore explore strategies that can actually be effective in helping parents realize the importance of regular physical activities for their children with cancer. Most importantly, healthcare professionals should motivate parents, as the primary caregivers, especially during children's cancer treatment, to take an important role in encouraging their children with cancer to adopt regular PA.

This study aims at testing the effectiveness of using motivational interviewing with parents in encouraging their children with cancer to adopt and maintain regular physical activity.

Conditions

• Pediatric Cancer

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Motivational interviewing

There are 3 sessions. Each session is an about 60-minute individual motivational interviewing held by a trained registered nurse. The first session aims to develop an action plan that enables the parents to promote physical activity (PA) for their children. The second session targets to review the adherence to the action plan. The nurse will discuss the progress. In the last session, the aim is to motivate the parents promoting PA for their children in the long run. As such, the benefits of PA throughout the survivorship will be emphasized. And the nurse will work with the parents to identify the resources that can help maintain the designed action plan.

BEHAVIORAL

Placebo control

Other than usual medical care received by children, parents in this group will receive an individual, face-to-face intervention which mimics the time and attention received by those in the experimental group. The intervention includes three sessions of educational talk to parents of children with cancer on healthy diet for cancer patients, adverse effects of cancer treatment, methods to minimize adverse effects. Subjects in both groups will receive a booklet developed by the advisory committee, which contains a various kind of physical activities specially designed for children with cancer.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• The University of Hong Kong

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Ho Cheung William Li, PhD · The University of Hong Kong

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

9 Years

Max Age

16 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-06-01

Primary Completion

2021-08-30

Completion

2021-08-30

Countries

• Hong Kong

Study Locations