Improving prostate cancer survivorship: building community partnerships through physical activity

Lavers, Laura (2018) Improving prostate cancer survivorship: building community partnerships through physical activity. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

Background: Physical activity (PA) has been shown to improve prostate cancer survivors physical functioning and quality of life (QoL). Purpose: To investigate the impact of a community-based PA program on the QoL, fitness, fatigue, strength, and physical functioning of prostate cancer survivors, with a secondary purpose to examine the program’s feasibility and sustainability. Methods: PROFit, a 12-week communitybased, supervised PA program was developed by reviewing the current PA and cancer literature, and through establishing partnerships with a cancer care program, community fitness facility, and university. Specifically, 15 prostate cancer survivors and their partners (N=4) were recruited to take part in the PA program, which consisted of strength (i.e., circuit training) and aerobic training. Survivors QoL, fatigue, prostate cancer specific symptoms, physical functioning, and PA levels were assessed at baseline, six and 12-weeks. Program attendance and cost were recorded to determine feasibility and sustainability. Satisfaction surveys were administered to participants and partners at six and 12-weeks. Results: One-way repeated measures analysis of variance found significant increases in lower body strength across all time points and flexibility from baseline to 12 weeks. No significant improvements were found in upper body strength, agility, aerobic fitness, weekly moderate-vigorous PA, QoL, and fatigue; however, nonsignificant increases in participant upper body strength, weekly moderate-vigorous PA, and agility were noted. Participants and partners reported a high level of satisfaction with the program, and program attendance and intervention costs were satisfactory. Conclusion: The PROFit program had a positive impact on prostate cancer survivorship. Due to the lack of evidence surrounding community-based PA programs in prostate cancer survivors, the PROFit program delivers valuable insight into the collaboration between hospitals, universities and community centers to provide prostate cancer survivors with a resource for improving survivorship (i.e., QoL, physical functioning) following treatment.

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