Abstract
We examined the prevalence of psychological outcomes (i.e., symptoms of depression and anxiety) by age and age-varying associations between physical activity and psychological outcomes among rural cancer survivors. Participants (N = 219; ages 22–93) completed sociodemographic, psychological, and physical activity questionnaires. Time-varying effect models estimated the prevalence of psychological outcomes and assessed associations between physical activity and psychological outcomes as a flexible function of age. Depression and anxiety symptoms decreased with age among cancer survivors aged 22–40 years and were relatively stable across age among those > 40 years. Positive associations between vigorous physical activity and psychological outcomes in those aged 22–40 years were identified. In those > 70–80 years, there were negative associations between vigorous physical activity and psychological outcomes. Results suggest there is variation across age in the associations between physical activity and psychological outcomes among rural survivors. Future research should further explore these age-varying relationships to identify important intervention targets.
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Funding
Nishat Bhuiyan is supported by National Institute on Aging Grant T32 AG049676 to The Pennsylvania State University. The Partnering to Prevent and Control Cancer (PPCC) study was funded under a grant with the Pennsylvania Department of Health using Tobacco CURE Funds (TRK08-Mama-PSU-2016F; PI: Mama). Scherezade Mama is supported by a career development award from the National Cancer Institute (K07 CA222335, PI: Mama). Ashley Linden-Carmichael is supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (K01 AA026854) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (P50 DA039838).
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The Partnering to Prevent and Control Cancer (PPCC) study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at The Pennsylvania State University (protocol ID: STUDY00006779). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.
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Bhuiyan, N., Linden-Carmichael, A.N., Lanza, S.T. et al. Age-varying associations between physical activity and psychological outcomes among rural cancer survivors. J Behav Med 44, 484–491 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-020-00187-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-020-00187-6