Changes in motivational outcomes following a supervised physical activity program with behavioral counseling in kidney cancer survivors: a pilot study

Despite the established benefits of physical activity (PA) across cancer survivor groups [1], many are not meeting public health PA guidelines including kidney cancer survivors (KCS) [2]. Many randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in cancer survivors have included a supervised PA component; however, behavior change and motivation decline significantly postintervention [3]. We previously completed a behavior change intervention based on an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to assess the feasibility of adding behavioral counseling to supervised PA in 32 KCS (TRACKS Trial) [4]. In the primary paper, we reported the supervised PA plus motivationally-enhanced behavioral counseling (SPA+BC) resulted in a non-significant increase of 34 min compared to the supervised PA program plus standard exercise counseling (SPA+EC), although the study was underpowered to detect a difference. Furthermore, the SPA+BC group significantly improved their 6-min walk. Here, we report the impact of SPA +EC versus SPA+BC on motivation levels among KCS. We hypothesized that SPA+BC would have significant positive effects on some TPB constructs (i.e. perceived behavioral control, planning) compared to SPA+EC