A randomized trial to promote physical activity among breast cancer patients

Physical activity (PA) has been shown to provide health benefits for breast cancer patients. The effects of augmenting oncology health care provider (HCP) advice for PA with 3 months of telephone counseling versus contact control were evaluated in a randomized trial.

After receiving brief HCP advice to become physically active, 192 women (age in years: M = 60.0, SD = 9.9) who had completed treatment for Stage 0-IV breast cancer were randomized to telephone counseling to support PA (n = 106) or contact control (n = 86). Their PA, motivational readiness, fatigue, and physical functioning were assessed at baseline (before receiving HCP advice), 3, 6, and 12 months.

Telephone counseling produced significant effects on the primary outcome of moderate-intensity PA of about 30 min/week at both 3 months (95% CI = 0.44, 57.32) and 6 months (95% CI = 3.06, 61.26). Intervention participants were also more than twice as likely as control participants to report improvements in achieving PA guidelines of at least 150 min/week at 3 (OR = 2.43, 95% CI = 1.18, 4.98) and 6 months (OR = 2.11, 95% CI = 1.00-4.48). Telephone counseling was significantly more effective than contact control in increasing motivational readiness for PA at all follow-ups (ORs = 3.93-6.28, all ps <.003). No between-groups differences were found for fatigue, while differential improvements in physical functioning did not remain significant past 3 months (p = .01).

HCP advice plus telephone counseling improved PA among breast cancer patients at 3 and 6 months and also differentially improved patients' motivational readiness at all follow-ups, suggesting the potential for exercise promotion in cancer follow-up care.