Compliance with Multiple Health Behaviour Recommendations: A Cross-Sectional Comparison between Female Cancer Survivors and Those with no Cancer History.

Daniel N Tollosa,Erica L James,Meredith Tavener,Alexis Hure

doi:10.3390/ijerph16081345

Abstract

Lifestyle behaviours have an important role in preventing cancer, reducing treatment side effects, and improving survival and quality of life for cancer survivors. This study investigated adherence to multiple lifestyle behaviours among women with and without a cancer history. From the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) surveys, 2407 cancer survivors and 3896 controls (cancer free population) were identified. Based on the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) recommendations, adherence to six health behaviours (smoking, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, alcohol consumption, sugary drink intake, and Body Mass Index [BMI]) were assessed. Overall adherence was low, and there were no differences between survivors and controls on adherence to any of the six individual health behaviours. However, both recent and long-term cancer survivors were more likely than controls to adhere to multiple health behaviours (p < 0.05). When participants with melanoma or non-melanoma skin cancer were excluded, adherence was less likely (but not significant) in the cancer group than controls. Higher education (p < 0.01), being married (p < 0.01), and lower comorbidity of chronic illnesses (p < 0.01) were significantly associated with adherence to multiple lifestyle behaviours. Overall, the findings suggest that a cancer diagnosis may result in increased compliance with multiple health behaviour guidelines.

Highlights

The population of cancer survivors is growing
A total of 2613 women reported a diagnosis of cancer in the 2013 (n = 1671, long-term survivors) and 2016 (n = 942, recent survivors) Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) surveys
Compared to the cancer free population, we found that adherence to multiple health behaviours was significantly different in recent and long-term survivors; the difference became non-significant for survivors without skin cancer (Table 5)

Summary

Introduction

The population of cancer survivors is growing. In 2012 alone, 32.6 million people were living with a cancer diagnosis worldwide [1]. Whilst increasing survival rates from cancer is encouraging, poor quality of life and cancer recurrences are major challenges for this population [1,2]. Healthy lifestyle habits, such as avoiding tobacco, engaging in physical activity, a healthy diet, and maintaining a healthy body weight have an important role both for primary cancer prevention of a second cancer, and in reducing treatment side effects and improving the effectiveness of cancer treatment [1,3,4]. It is strongly advised that cancer survivors be holistic, and adopt health behaviour recommendations as a lifestyle package, rather than making changes to just one behaviour [1,5].

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion