Effects Of A Tai Chi App On Mental Health Among Breast Cancer Survivors

Abstract

PURPOSE: To our best knowledge, few studies have integrated Tai Chi (TC) and social media apps to facilitate disease prevention and management in breast cancer survivors (BCS). In response, this study investigated the effects of a mobile TC app and Facebook (FB) program on stress and quality of life (QoL) among BCS. METHODS: This study was a remote, 12-week 2-arm parallel randomized controlled trial (RCT). Participants were randomly assigned into either the intervention condition (practicing TC app exercise three times a day, at least five days/week and receiving FB health tips) or the comparison condition (receiving FB health tips). The final sample comprised 35 female BCS ( = 56.17). The Perceived Stress Scale was used to measure stress and the Patient Reported Outcome Measurement Information System was used to assess QoL - mental health (anxiety and depression) and physical health. RESULTS: There were no significant time*group interaction effects for stress and mental health (Wilk’s lambda =0.96, F (2, 32) = 0.74, p = 0.48, η2 = 0.04) and physical health (Wilk’s lambda =1.00, F (1,33) = 0.14, p = 0.71, η2 = 0.00). However, a significant time effect was observed for mental health, F (1,33) = 5.51, p = 0.02, η2 = 0.14; and physical health, F (1,33) = 5.59, p = 0.05, η2 = 0.14; but not for stress, F (1,33) = 1.70, p = 0.20, η2 = 0.05. Specifically, participants’ physical health (1.57 vs. 1.42) and mental health (1.80 vs. 1.63) significantly improved over time across both groups. Also, a group effect for mental health approached the significant level, F (1,33) = 4.06, p = 0.05, η2 = 0.11. In detail, the intervention participants had significantly better mental health at post-test (1.43 vs. 1.90) compared to the comparison participants (p 0.05, 95%CI: -0.91 to -0.40). CONCLUSION: The study findings suggested that the implementation of the Tai Chi app combined FB health tips program had positive effects on BCS’s mental health. Also, offering a health education program could be beneficial to BCS’s physical health as well. The present findings are meaningful given that physical activity plays an important role in promoting health and reducing cancer-related death and breast cancer events (e.g., recurrence, new breast cancer primaries) in BCS.