BACKGROUND: More than 80% of adolescent and young adult cancer patients (AYACPs) experienced psychological distress. Physical activity and behavioral activation are effective to relieve the psychological distress in AYACPs. METHODS: Participants aged 15 to 39 years diagnosed with malignant tumors were included. A total of 143 eligible AYACPs were randomly assigned to three groups. The treatment-as-usual group (n = 48) received routine care, the physical activity group (n = 47) received 8 weeks of physical activity program based on intelligent wearable devices, and the behavioral activation group (n = 48) received an internet-based modified behavioral activation program for 8 weeks. Objective outcome measures included salivary cortisol and testosterone. RESULTS: Linear mixed-model analyses showed significant differences between treatment-as-usual, physical activity and behavioral activation in salivary cortisol, as well as total scores on depression and anxiety, physical activity, self-efficacy, and social support. Significantly stronger effect sizes for physical activity group compared with behavioral activation group were found on physical activity (d = 0.53) (1 week after intervention), moderate activity (d = 0.61), and walking activity (d = 0.57) (3-month follow-up). CONCLUSIONS: Intelligent, wearable, device-based physical activity program is more effective in alleviating anxiety and depression, reducing saliva cortisol, and improving physical activity in AYACPs than internet-based modified behavioral activation program. Intelligent, wearable, device-based physical activity program can reduce the time cost of AYACPs to ensure that the intervention is carried out.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• PubMed Central
• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher