Buck, C, Pini, S, Lally, P et al. (2 more authors) (2023) The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health behaviours of people living with and beyond breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer—a qualitative study. Journal of Cancer Survivorship, 17 (5). pp. 1488-1498. ISSN 1932-2259
Abstract
Purpose
Positive health behaviours (sufficient exercise, healthy diet, limiting alcohol, and not smoking) can improve multiple outcomes after a cancer diagnosis. Observational studies suggest that health behaviours were negatively impacted for some but not all individuals living with and beyond cancer. The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore the impact of the pandemic on health behaviours of people in this population.
Methods
Thirty participants were purposively sampled for characteristics including diagnostic group (breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers), gender, time since diagnosis, and age. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to discuss the impact of the pandemic on health behaviours. Thematic analysis and a secondary Ideal Types analysis were conducted.
Results
Five themes covered changes in food, weight management, relationship to alcohol, and exercise. Five “types” were identified, representing orientations to health behaviours. The “gift of time” provided by the pandemic had an impact on health behaviours, with trends towards increases in drinking, eating unhealthy food, and exercising less.
Conclusions
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted engagement in positive health behaviours among participants in this study. Strict restrictions and changes in routines resulted in individuals adjusting how they managed their diet, alcohol intake, and exercise behaviours. The typology identified within this study helps to define how different orientation to health behaviours could underpin the responses of individual people LWBC.
Implications for cancer survivors
Alongside providing an understanding of the experiences of people LWBC during the COVID-19 pandemic, the proposed typology suggests how, with further development, future health behaviour interventions in this group could be targeted based on individual orientations to health, rather than demographic or clinical variables.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Cancer survivorship; Health behaviours; COVID-19; Pandemic; Qualitative; Typology |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Medicine (Leeds) > Leeds Institute of Health Sciences (Leeds) > Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 25 May 2023 09:22 |
Last Modified: | 29 Nov 2023 15:57 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s11764-022-01234-8 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:199532 |