Title: Green Exercise for Cancer - Creating Opportunities for Survivors (GECCOS)
Rationale: Exercise is related to lower rates of late effects like fatigue, heart disease and second cancers among survivors of childhood cancer. Yet levels of exercise remain low among survivors. The context where exercise occurs - indoors or outdoors - may affect motivation to exercise and sustained exercise behavior. Yet the effects of exercise context on motivation and maintained behavior remain unexamined. This study aims to pilot test an outdoor exercise intervention for cancer survivors compared to attention controls receiving an indoor exercise intervention.
Target Population: Adolescent (13 to 17 years) and young adult (18 to 30 years) survivors of any cancer or hematopoietic cell transplantation for non-malignant disease.
Number of Participants :
16 to 20 participants (8 to 10 adolescents, 8 to 10 young adults).
Objective:
Pilot test, for feasibility and acceptability, a novel outdoor exercise intervention to motivate and maintain exercise in adolescent and young adult survivors of childhood cancer. Using a randomized cross-over design, participants will randomly receive both indoor and outdoor exercise sessions.
Study Design:
Randomized Cross-over Pilot Trial
Measures of Interest:
Primary Outcome - Accelerometer measured moderate to vigorous physical activity.
Secondary Outcomes - Self-Determination Theory based measures of motivation to exercise from validated survey questions. Fatigue, measured with validated survey questions.
Semi-structured qualitative exit interview will be used to assess acceptability and feasibility of the intervention.
