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BACKGROUND: Despite an overwhelming body of evidence showing the benefits of physical activity (PA) and exercise for cancer survivors, few survivors meet the exercise oncology guidelines. Moreover, initiating, let alone maintaining exercise programs with cancer survivors continues to have limited success. The aim of this trial is to evaluate the influence of peer support on moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and various markers of health 12 months following a brief supervised exercise intervention in cancer survivors. METHODS: Men and women previously diagnosed with histologically-confirmed breast, colorectal or prostate cancer (n = 226), who are >1-month post-treatment, will be invited to participate in this trial. Once enrolled, participants will complete 4 weeks (12 sessions) of supervised high intensity interval training (HIIT). On completion of the supervised phase, both groups will be provided with written recommendations and verbally encouraged to achieve three HIIT sessions per week, or equivalent exercise that meets the exercise oncology guidelines. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive 12 months of peer support, or no peer support (control). Primary and secondary outcomes will be assessed at baseline, after the 4-week supervised HIIT phase and at 3-, 6- and 12-months. Primary outcomes will include accelerometry-derived MVPA and prescribed HIIT session adherence; whilst secondary outcomes will include cardiorespiratory fitness ([Formula: see text]), body composition, quality of life and select cytokines, myokines and inflammatory markers. Random effects mixed modelling will be used to compare mean changes in outcomes between groups at each time point. A group x time interaction will be used to formally test for differences between groups (alpha =0.05); utilising intention-to-treat analyses. DISCUSSION: If successful, peer support may be proposed, adopted and implemented as a strategy to encourage cancer survivors to maintain exercise beyond the d

The stability of post-traumatic growth overtime and the relationship between post-traumatic growth and traditional distress outcomes remains unclear. We tracked post-traumatic growth in a population-based sample of colorectal cancer patients from soon after diagnosis to five years subsequently to assess the heterogeneity of a post-traumatic growth response to cancer over time and describe the simultaneous and longitudinal relationships between post-traumatic growth and psychological distress. 1966 colorectal patients who were five months post diagnosis were assessed six times over a five year period. There was considerable heterogeneity associated with both psychological distress and benefit finding scores over time. However, both for benefit finding and psychological distress, the variation in individual scores suggested an underlying positive linear trend and both lagged and lagged change components. Specifically, benefit finding and psychological distress are mutual leading indicators of each other. First, benefit finding served as a leading indicator of distress, in that increases in reported benefit finding from year to year predicted higher future increases in psychological distress. As well, in an inverse relationship, psychological distress served as a leading indicator of benefit finding, such that increases in reported distress from year to year predicted lower future increases in benefit finding. Post-traumatic growth may reflect patients coping efforts to enhance perceptions of wellbeing in response to escalating cancer-related threats, acting as harbinger of increasing trajectories of psychological distress. This explanation is consistent with a cognitive dissonance response in which threats to the integrity of the self then lead to a tendency to accentuate positive aspects of the self.

Adlard, K. N., Jenkins, D. G., Salisbury, C. E., Bolam, K. A., Gomersall, S. R., Aitken, J. F., ... Skinner, T. L. (2019). Peer support for the maintenance of physical activity and health in cancer survivors: the PEER trial-a study protocol of a randomised controlled trial. BMC Cancer, 19, Article 656. Available here

Legg, M., Occhipinti, S., Youl, P., Dunn, J., & Chambers, S. K. (2017). Needy or resilient? How women with breast cancer think about peer support. Psycho‐Oncology. 26, 2307-2310. Available here.

Occhipinti, S., Chambers, S. K., Lepore, S., Aitken, J., & Dunn, J. (2015). A Longitudinal Study of Post-Traumatic Growth and Psychological Distress in Colorectal Cancer Survivors. PloS one, 10(9), e0139119.Available here

Hyde, M.K., Chambers, S.K., Shum, D., Ip, D., & Dunn, J. (2016). Psycho-oncology assessment in Chinese populations: A systematic review of quality of life and psychosocial measures in European Journal of Cancer Care, 25(5), 691-718. Available here.