Barriers Identification as Intervention to Engage Breast Cancer Survivors in Physical Activity

This study was designed to demonstrate the advantage of adding cancer barriers to components of decision-making in the transtheoretical model (TTM). In study 1, questionnaires were completed by 139 breast cancer survivors including decisional balance, cancer-related barriers and stages of readiness. In study 2, efficiency of directly tackling cancer-related barriers through motivational-style conversation was tested in a quasi-experimental design. From study 1, all decision-making variables were related to stages of readiness, but cancer-related barriers were the sole predictors of engagement in physical activity. Out of the three groups of study 2, only the group with motivational-style conversation displayed a significant progress for engagement in physical activity. Demonstrating that cancer-related barriers predict stage of change above the effects of the two components of decisional balance provides a validation of positions that put cancer-related barriers as uniquely related to stages of change, and suggests that adding them in decision making variables in TTM's model can provide a genuinely new contribution to the understanding of physical activity adherence. Regarding implication for cancer survivors, these results suggest that in order to stimulate progress in early stages of change, a greater emphasis may be needed on reducing cancer-related barriers.