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  • Barriers and facilitators to healthy lifestyle and acceptability of a dietary and physical activity intervention among African Caribbean prostate cancer survivors in the UK: a qualitative study

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Qualitative research
Research
Barriers and facilitators to healthy lifestyle and acceptability of a dietary and physical activity intervention among African Caribbean prostate cancer survivors in the UK: a qualitative study
  1. Vanessa Er1,
  2. J Athene Lane1,2,
  3. Richard M Martin1,2,3,
  4. Raj Persad4,
  5. Frank Chinegwundoh5,6,
  6. Victoria Njoku5,
  7. Eileen Sutton1
  1. 1School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
  2. 2NIHR Bristol Nutrition Biomedical Research Unit, University Hospitals Bristol Education & Research Centre, Bristol, UK
  3. 3MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, Bristol, UK
  4. 4Bristol Urological Institute, North Bristol NHS Trust, Southmead Hospital, Bristol, UK
  5. 5Department of Urology, Barts Health NHS Trust, The Royal London Hospital, London, UK
  6. 6School of Health Sciences, University of London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Vanessa Er; vanessa.er{at}bristol.ac.uk

Abstract

Objectives Diet and lifestyle may have a role in delaying prostate cancer progression, but little is known about the health behaviours of Black British prostate cancer survivors despite this group having a higher prostate cancer mortality rate than their White counterparts. We explored the barriers and facilitators to dietary and lifestyle changes and the acceptability of a diet and physical activity intervention in African Caribbean prostate cancer survivors.

Design We conducted semistructured in-depth interviews and used thematic analysis to code and group the data.

Participants and setting We recruited 14 African Caribbean prostate cancer survivors via letter or at oncology follow-up appointments using purposive and convenience sampling.

Results A prostate cancer diagnosis did not trigger dietary and lifestyle changes in most men. This lack of change was underpinned by five themes: precancer diet and lifestyle, evidence, coping with prostate cancer, ageing, and autonomy. Men perceived their diet and lifestyle to be healthy and were uncertain about the therapeutic benefits of these factors on prostate cancer recurrence. They considered a lifestyle intervention as unnecessary because their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was kept under control by the treatments they had received. They believed dietary and lifestyle changes should be self-initiated and motivated, but were willing to make additional changes if they were perceived to be beneficial to health. Nonetheless, some men cited advice from health professionals and social support in coping with prostate cancer as facilitators to positive dietary and lifestyle changes. A prostate cancer diagnosis and ageing also heightened men’s awareness of their health, particularly in regards to their body weight.

Conclusions A dietary and physical activity intervention framed as helping men to regain fitness and aid post-treatment recovery aimed at men with elevated PSA may be appealing and acceptable to African Caribbean prostate cancer survivors.

  • prostatic neoplasms
  • qualitative research
  • diet
  • physical activity
  • caribbean region
  • survivors

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-017217

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors VE, ES, JAL and RM conceived the study. VE, ES, FC, RP and VN contributed to the design and conduct of the research and acquisition of data. VE and ES analysed the data. VE, ES, RM and JAL wrote the first draft of the paper. ES, JAL and RM provided supervision. VE, ES, JAL and RM have primarily responsibility for final content. All authors were involved in revising the paper and read and approved the final version of the paper.

    • Funding This work was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Bristol Nutrition Biomedical Research Unit. The unit is a partnership between University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bristol. VE was a recipient of a 3-year PhD studentship at the Bristol Nutrition Biomedical Research Unit from 2012–2015. RM and JAL are recipients of CRUK programme funding (C18281/A19169).

    • Disclaimer The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Cancer Research UK, the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent All participants provided their written informed consent to take part in the study.

    • Ethics approval Ethical approval was provided by the Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee (13/NW/0878).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are not publicly available as participants may be identifiable, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.