Good practices in adapted physical activity for cancer patients and survivors: opinion of the Raviva program participants

Introduction
The Belgian Foundation against Cancer proposes an adapted physical activity (APA) program for cancer patients and survivors, called Raviva (http://www.cancer.be/raviva-bouger-pour-se-sentir-mieux).The activities are supervised by instructors with inconstant trainings and experiences. Contrary to other countries, Belgian APA instructors do not necessarily need to follow specific education programs such those proposed by the ACSM (Schmitz et al., 2010) or other organizations that propose exercise guidelines for cancer survivors. The aim of this study was to identify good practices in APA for cancer patients and survivors concerning activity characteristics and instructors behaviors, from the point of view of the Raviva program participants.

Methods
Firstly, an online questionnaire was submitted to Raviva participants; 72 of them filled it in. Secondly, 3 video-stimulated recall interviews were conducted after 3 different Raviva sessions (fitness, yoga and aqua-aerobics), each time with another participant.

Results and discussion
The sessions characteristics that participants like the most are related to the choice and quality of the proposed exercises (22% of responses) and to the perceived benefits of the activities (20%). The most appreciated qualities for an instructor are related to his/her human qualities (43%) and his/her expertise (32%). What participants like least about the sessions is a poor organization (27%) and what they like least about the instructors is linked to bad choices of exercises (18%). The video-stimulated recall interviews confirmed these data and provided more precision. Finally, we noticed that differences in responses were observed depending on the type of activity participants took part in. These findings could help instructors adapt their practices to their participants’ needs in order to promote adherence to physical activity among this population.

References
Schmitz, K. H., Courneya, K. S., Matthews, C., Demark-Wahnefried, W., Galvão, D. a, Pinto, B. M., … Schwartz, A. L. (2010). American College of Sports Medicine roundtable on exercise guidelines for cancer survivors. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 42(7), 1409‑26. https://doi.org/10.1249/MSS.0b013e3181e0c112