| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 臨床護理研究所 === 105 === In Taiwan and other countries, the incidence rate of colorectal cancer is among the top three most commonly occurring cancers. With early screening and improved medical treatment, patients’ survival rates have increased annually. However, these patients need to face the long-term situation of having this cancer. Several studies have revealed that increased physical activity can help cancer patients reduce the recurrence rate, mortality rate, burden of symptoms, and may improve the quality of life. However, most colorectal cancer patients do not meet the recommended physical activity standard. According to the American Cancer Society, when patients were diagnosed as colorectal cancer , medical personnel should provide health behavior information, which may help these patients perform or continue maintain physical activities. Patients have to rely on their own health literacy to understand and decide regarding the physical activity and other health-related information, which may affect their implementation of these activities. Empowerment is also an important factor that affects the patients’ performance of physical activities. This study aimed to understand how health literacy, empowerment, and other factors affect colorectal cancer patients’ physical activities, as a basis for the follow-up improvement program.
This was a cross-sectional study, and the participants who were newly diagnosed with colorectal cancer within the first 6 months were recruited using the purposive sampling. Structured questionnaires, such as Cancer-Related Health Literacy Questionnaire (CHLQ), Patient Empowerment Scale (PES), and IPAQ Taiwan version of the short last 7 days self-administered format, were used to collect data in medical institutions of Northern Taiwan. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS Statistics 20.0 for Windows (IBM Corp.,Armonk, NY). The descriptive statistics, such as the mean, standard deviation, and median, were used to analyze the status and distribution of variables. The Spearman’s correlation coefficients, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Chi-square test, and Pearson correlation coefficient were used to analyze the correlation between the variables and physical activity. Furthermore, the binary logistic regression was used to determine the predictors of physical activity.
The results showed that nearly half of the newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients (49.55%) did not meet the physical activity guideline. Patients more often preferred walking. Lower physical activity was reported in patients who had more chronic diseases, poorer perceived health condition, more fatigue, and neuropathy symptom that affected their daily activities. Although health literacy, empowerment, and physical activity were statistically insignificant, patients with higher health literacy and empowerment scores were more physically active. The regression analysis showed that fatigue was the most important factor in predicting the newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients’ performance of physical activities. As the fatigue affecting the physical activity score increased by 1 point, the chance of patients meeting the physical activity guideline was significantly reduced by 17.4% (OR = 0.826, 95% CI =0.708-0.963).
Improving the newly diagnosed colorectal cancer patients’ physical activity status still has a long way to go. The medical personnel’s main responsibility not only include active fatigue management, but also establishment of a good partnership with the patients. Medical personnel should also provide individual and detailed guidance on physical activities at every opportunity they can get while interacting with the patients. They should also improve the patients’ knowledge and awareness on the importance of performing these physical activities, and encourage them to begin light physical activities or walking, and gradually increasing their habits and confidence in to take up more intense physical activities; thereby, meeting the physical activity guideline.
|
|---|
