Compliance with Multiple Health Behaviour Recommendations: A Cross-Sectional Comparison between Female Cancer Survivors and Those with no Cancer History

Daniel N Tollosa, Meredith Tavener, Alexis Hure and Erica L James
Additional contact information
Daniel N Tollosa: School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia
Meredith Tavener: School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia
Alexis Hure: School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia
Erica L James: School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, Newcastle, NSW 2308, Australia

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: Lifestyle behaviours have an important role in preventing cancer, reducing treatment side effects, and improving survival and quality of life for cancer survivors. This study investigated adherence to multiple lifestyle behaviours among women with and without a cancer history. From the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health (ALSWH) surveys, 2407 cancer survivors and 3896 controls (cancer free population) were identified. Based on the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) recommendations, adherence to six health behaviours (smoking, physical activity, fruit and vegetable intake, alcohol consumption, sugary drink intake, and Body Mass Index [BMI]) were assessed. Overall adherence was low, and there were no differences between survivors and controls on adherence to any of the six individual health behaviours. However, both recent and long-term cancer survivors were more likely than controls to adhere to multiple health behaviours ( p < 0.05). When participants with melanoma or non-melanoma skin cancer were excluded, adherence was less likely (but not significant) in the cancer group than controls. Higher education ( p < 0.01), being married ( p < 0.01), and lower comorbidity of chronic illnesses ( p < 0.01) were significantly associated with adherence to multiple lifestyle behaviours. Overall, the findings suggest that a cancer diagnosis may result in increased compliance with multiple health behaviour guidelines.

Keywords: multiple health behaviours; adherence; cancer survivors; ALSWH (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1345/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/8/1345/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:8:p:1345-:d:222755

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().