ASPO Abstracts
Do Perceived Health Competence and Perceived Social Relatedness for Health mediate the association between Wearable Activity Tracker (WAT) Usage, Self-Rated Health, and Physical Activity Among a Cohort of Cancer Survivors from HINTS Survey Data?
Category: Behavioral Science & Health Communication
Conference Year: 2021
Abstract Body:
Purpose: Physical activity (PA) plays an important role in achieving positive health outcomes for cancer survivors. Wearable activity trackers (WATs) have shown potential to increase PA. However, little is known about whether WATs influence health beliefs to increase PA. The primary purpose of this study is to investigate the direct associations of WATs on PA and self-rated health (SRH) with indirect associations facilitated by perceived health competence and perceived social relatedness for health. Methods: Data on cancer survivors were analyzed from the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 5 Cycle 1-3. Structural equation modeling was used to test the relationship between previous WAT use (yes/no), PA (minutes per week), SRH (excellent to poor), perceived health competence (completely confident to not at all confident), and perceived social relatedness for health (yes/no), controlling for age and sex. Results: The mean age of the cohort (n=1,421) was 66.6 (±12.3). The majority of cancer survivors were non-Hispanic white (80.5%), did not meet the recommended amount of weekly PA (68%), and only half reported between 0-74 minutes of PA per week (50.4%). About one-third of cancer survivors reported using a WAT in the past month (31.2%). Cancer survivors who reported using WATs also reported engaging in an average of 23 more minutes of PA per week compared to survivors who did not (181 minutes vs 158.3 minutes). Previous WAT use had significant direct but not indirect associations with PA (standardized beta=0.07, p=0.005). Additionally, WAT use had significant indirect associations with SRH (standardized beta: 0.04, p=0.005) facilitated by perceived health competence and PA. Conclusions: We found a direct association between WAT use and PA. However, WAT use was not indirectly associated with PA through a survivor's health competence or social relatedness for health. More importantly, WAT use may indirectly influence cancer survivors' SRH by increasing their perceived health competence and PA. These findings support the notion that WATs may be an important part of addressing SRH among cancer survivors and may aid in meeting basic psychological health needs, particularly perceived health competence.
Keywords: mhealth, wearable technology, exercise, survivorship