Barriers to physical activity and healthy diet among breast cancer survivors: A multilevel perspective
Open accessAbstract
Cancer survivors engage in suboptimal levels of health behaviours and report many barriers to health behaviours, but we lack a solid understanding of the different levels of barriers and how they relate to enacted health behaviours. To address these issues, we conducted mixed-method research in 97 breast cancer survivors. Participants' barriers to physical activity (PA) and healthy diet, asked as an open-ended question, were coded as individual-level, social-level, and organisational/environmental-level for each health behaviour. Moderate-to-vigorous PA and fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake were assessed. Most participants perceived at least one PA (72.7%) and diet (64.9%) individual-level barrier (e.g. physical symptoms/injury); only 15.2% (PA) and 15.6% (diet) reported at least one social-level barrier (e.g. family obligations). About 28.8% (PA) and 29.9% (diet) perceived at least one organisational/environmental-level barrier (e.g. job demand, cost of F&V). Survivors perceiving individual-level dietary barriers consumed less F&V (-.65 servings/day) than those not perceiving dietary barriers at this level. Survivors perceiving social-level dietary barriers reported marginally lower F&V intake (-.65 servings/day) than their counterparts. Those perceiving organisational/environmental-level PA barriers reported marginally fewer minutes (-44.30/week) of moderate-to-vigorous PA than their counterparts. Barriers at multiple levels should be addressed to improve health behaviours among breast cancer survivors.
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- Authors
- Cho, D., & Park, C. L.
- Affiliations
- University of Connecticut (US)
- Corresponding author
- Cho, D.
- ORCID
- Venue
- European Journal of Cancer Care
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2017-09-21
- Volume
- 27
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- e12772
- ISSN
- 0961-5423 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5786487
- OpenAlex
- W2757912618
- Cited by
- 55
- References
- 28
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 1.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- European Journal of Cancer Care (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Cancer Institute (5R21CA152129-2)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer survivorship and care
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Risks and Factors
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Women's cancer prevention and management
- Keywords
- breast cancer survivors, barriers to physical activity, barriers to healthy eating, fruit and vegetable intake, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, health behavior, cancer survivorship
- MeSH terms
- Diet, Healthy, Cancer Survivors, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Breast Neoplasms, Diet, Female, Fruit, Humans, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Vegetables, Health Behavior, Exercise, Qualitative Research, Multilevel Analysis
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