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Cancer Survivors’ Adherence to Lifestyle Behavior Recommendations and Associations With Health-Related Quality of Life: Results From the American Cancer Society's SCS-II

Christopher M. Blanchard, Kerry S. Courneya, Kevin Stein

From the Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; and the Department of Quality of Life Research, Behavioral Research Center, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA

Corresponding author: Christopher Blanchard, Dalhousie University, Department of Medicine (Div. of Cardiology), QEII Health Sciences Centre, Centre for Clinical Research (Room 205), 5790 University Ave, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 1V7, Canada; e-mail: chris.blanchard{at}dal.ca

Purpose To examine the prevalence and clustering of physical activity (PA), fruit and vegetable consumption (5-A-Day), and smoking across six major cancer survivor groups and to identify any associations with health-related quality of life (HRQoL).

Methods A total of 9,105 survivors of six different cancers completed a national cross-sectional survey that included the lifestyle behavior questions and the RAND-36 Health Status Inventory.

Results Only a minority of cancer survivors were meeting the 5-A-Day (14.8% to 19.1%) or PA (29.6% to 47.3%) recommendations, whereas most were meeting the smoking recommendation (82.6% to 91.6%). In terms of the lifestyle behavior clusters, only 5% of cancer survivors were meeting all three recommendations. Analyses of covariance generally showed higher HRQoL in survivors who were meeting versus not meeting each lifestyle behavior recommendation with the strongest associations emerging for PA. Trend analyses showed a steep positive association between the number of lifestyle behavior recommendations being met and HRQoL for breast (P < .001), prostate (P < .001), colorectal (P < .001), bladder (P < .001), uterine (P < .001), and skin melanoma (P < .001) cancer survivors.

Conclusion Few cancer survivors are meeting the PA or 5-A-Day recommendations, and even fewer are meeting all three lifestyle recommendations. The association between the current lifestyle recommendations and HRQoL in cancer survivors appears to be cumulative. Interventions to increase PA and fruit and vegetable consumption and reduce smoking are warranted and may have additive effects on the HRQoL of cancer survivors.

Supported intramural funding from the American Cancer Society.

Presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, March 26-29, 2008, San Diego, CA.

Authors’ disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and author contributions are found at the end of this article.

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