Variables associated with physical exercise in breast cancer survivors

Abstract

Breast cancer survivors (BCS) frequently present several secondary effects and sequelae. Physical exercise has emerged as a strategy that helps people to mitigate the negative physical and psychological symptoms caused by cancer and its treatments. Objective: The objective of this article is to know if the following variables: anxiety symptomatology, depressive symptomatology, coping styles, level of social support and barriers, were associated with physical exercise in women that have suffered from breast cancer. Method: This is a descriptive study in women who have attend the Spanish Association Against Cancer in Madrid. The variables we have analyzed were: performing regular physical exercise or not, evaluated with the stages of change questionnaire for physical exercise (URICA-E2), anxiety symptomatology through the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), depressive symptomatology with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), to assess coping styles we used the COPE-28 questionnaire, the level of social support through the Medical Outcomes Study-Social Support Survey (MOS) and a brief questionnaire for the barriers to physical exercise designed by Kostiuk (2016). Results: The simple consisted of 165 breast cancer survivors, with a mean age of 49.17 years (SD=7.54); 62.4% claimed to have children, 50.3% were married, 75.8% had university studies, 57.8% were active. Regarding the clinical variables, 100% of the women underwent surgery, of whom 78.2% also received chemotherapy, 78.8% radiotherapy and 78.8% hormone therapy. There were 71.5 % (118) women who reported practicing physical exercise on a regular basis, and 28.5% (47) did not. The variables that were associated with the regular practice of physical exercise were: anxious symptoms (p=0.006), depressive symptoms (p<0.001), coping style; active (p=0.016); acceptance (p=0.020) and religion (p= 0.003). As well as individual (p<0.001), community (p<0.001) and obligation (p=0.007) barriers. Conclusions: The variables of depressive symptomatology, anxiety, coping style and barriers are associated with the practice of physical exercise in BCS.