Factors influencing people’s ability to maintain their activity levels during treatment for soft tissue sarcoma – A qualitative study

ABSTRACT

Background and Purpose

Soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is a rare connective tissue cancer treated with chemotherapy in the advanced stages. Emerging evidence suggests that physical activity (PA) improves symptom management and quality of life for people undergoing chemotherapy for advanced cancer. However, little research reports their perspective. Method: Semi-structured interviews were used within a phenomenological approach to explore factors that affect people’s ability to be physically active while undergoing treatment. Six participants were recruited with purposive sampling. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Results: Three themes identified that PA was seen as an indicator of a persons’ own sense of normality; a feeling of loss and uncertainty for the future had impacts on peoples’ ability to be physically active, and finally, participants found it challenging to recognize their support needs as their activity levels reduced. Motivation to remain active was individual, and numerous barriers affected participants’ ability to remain active as their disease advanced; this included a lack of specific guidance while undergoing chemotherapy. Participants expressed uncertainty generally in identifying and expressing their support needs as they faced multiple complex issues. Conclusion: Health professionals should be proactive in exploring possibilities for PA to mitigate the expected physical decline, and support symptom management while undergoing palliative chemotherapy.

KEYWORDS:

• Soft tissue sarcoma
• physical activity
• chemotherapy

Acknowledgments

With thanks to the patients and the Sarcoma Unit for supporting this study. With particular thanks to Dr. Charlotte Benson and Professor Ian Judson, Lindsey Bennister, from Sarcoma UK for collaboration and advice about the interview topic schedule, the Royal Marsden Therapies Department and the sarcoma clinical nurse specialists for support during the development and conduct of this study; also Professor Theresa Wiseman for ongoing support and advice. The authors acknowledge support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Royal Marsden/Institute of Cancer Research Biomedical Research Center.

Declaration of interest

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest.