Cancer prehabilitation is increasingly becoming an integral part of cancer care. Patients are therefore asked to engage in health behaviours and exercises before their cancer treatment starts. This is proposed to mitigate side effects and problems that they may not yet be experiencing but are known consequences of their treatment. The authors of this paper focus on preventative swallowing exercises for patients with head and neck cancer who are undergoing chemo radiotherapy. They consider the relatively unexplored aspect of how individuals’ personality characteristics influence their adherence and uptake of a preventative swallowing exercise programme. They performed a secondary analysis of data collected during the PRESTO swallowing exercise trial. They had 116/150 completed questionnaires from trial participants collected at baseline and providing information on the 60-item NEO Five Factor Inventory. The 5 personality traits were: neuroticism, conscientiousness, altruism, extraversion and openness. Using regression models and binary adherence variables of >75% of all exercises vs. <75%, they found that only one personality trait (openness) was significantly associated with higher adherence, although the effect size was very small. The authors concluded that whilst openness was shown to reach statistical significance, it is unlikely to be of clinical relevance. No other characteristics were found to be linked to adherence in this study. Whilst they offer a few limitations to the study, one might also consider whether factors other than personality are really the key/overriding drivers to adherence behaviours in this context.
Does personality influence adherence to preventative exercises in people diagnosed with head and neck cancer?
Reviewed by Roganie Govender
Adherence To Prophylactic Swallowing Exercises in Head and Neck Cancer Patients (PRESTO-TRIAL) - the ROLE of Personality Characteristics.
CONTRIBUTOR
Roganie Govender
University College London, Head & Neck Academic Centre, UK.
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