ArticleBMC public health2025
Assessing the physical activity of parents of children suffering from cancer: a cross-sectional study.
Article in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Heroes in motion - a six-year quality report and patient evaluation of a real-world exercise therapy program in pediatric oncology.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- Status Quo analysis of an exercise therapy care model in pediatric oncology during acute therapy: perspectives from patients, parents, siblings, and staff.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
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5 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundRegular physical activity (PA) is essential for biopsychosocial health, but reduced PA during therapy for childhood cancer increases the burden of long-term side effects. Cancer and its therapy determine the everyday life of affected families, and parents spend plenty of time with their child in the hospital. Thus, we assumed that the restriction of the movement environment affects the parents’ PA-behavior. Meanwhile, parents have a pronounced influence on their child’s PA-behavior. Therefore, we investigated self-reported PA and sitting time (ST) of parents before and during their child’s cancer therapy.
methodsForty parents provided their consent and participated in the study between September 2021 and February 2022. Parental PA and ST were reported before and during their child’s cancer therapy in a cross-sectional design using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form (IPAQ-SF). The questionnaire was supplemented with questions dealing with attitude towards exercise, physical status of the parents and prerequisites for movement therapy. Analysis of variance was applied using IBM SPSS Statistics. The Ethics Committee of the University of Freiburg approved the study.
resultsThe self-reported parents’ PA-levels before their child’s diagnosis corresponded to reference values for healthy adults. During their child’s therapy, all reported dimensions of parental daily PA and the number of Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET)-minutes of PA per week decreased significantly. Especially during inpatient stays, PA declined (mean ± SD: from 3004.5 ± 2301.4 to 889.1 ± 1585.1; p < 0.001), with a significant increase in ST in minutes per workday (mean ± SD: from 329.3 ± 196.6 to 687.8 ± 268.8; p < 0.001). In addition, 45% of the parents reported about new physical complaints since their child’s cancer diagnosis and 92.5% could imagine taking part in an exercise program.
conclusionsThe findings of this retrospective, cross-sectional questionnaire study suggest that parental PA declines during a child’s cancer therapy. Nearly half of the parents reported new physical complaints since their child’s cancer diagnosis. To counteract these health hazards, future exercise programs in pediatric oncology should include parents to promote their own health and to enable them to act as role models for their children.
trial registrationGerman Register of Clinical Trials No.: DRKS00026248, prospectively registered on 17/09/2021.
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