Health behaviors among young adult cancer survivors and the importance of task self-efficacy

Abstract Purpose To examine the prevalence and predictors of adhering to smoking, diet, exercise, and alcohol guidelines among young adult cancer survivors (cases) and matched controls without a history of cancer (controls) within 5 years post-treatment. Methods Cases ( N = 335, mean age = 31.8 years, women = 68%) and age-, education-, sex-, and partner-status matched controls ( N = 335) from a national online research panel completed measures assessing demographic characteristics, health behaviors (smoking, diet, exercise, alcohol), and task self-efficacy. Conditional logistic regression estimated the difference in health behaviors and self-efficacy between cases and controls. Results Rates of engagement in health behaviors were suboptimal across groups (Cases: 63% = abstaining from cigarettes or tobacco products daily, 29% = ≥ 5 servings of fruits and vegetables/day (FV intake), 55% = moderate to vigorous exercise for > 30 min for ≥ 5 days/week, 70% = abstaining from alcohol; Controls: 70%, 20%, 39%, 70%, respectively). Compared to controls, cases were less likely to avoid smoking (OR = 0.70, p = .04), more likely to report meeting FV intake (OR = 1.63, p = .01) and exercise (OR = 1.85, p < .001) guidelines and engaged in similar rates of abstaining from alcohol ( p = 0.48). Reporting high task self-efficacy was associated with 3.7 to 20.2 times higher odds for meeting recommendations for healthy lifestyle behaviors, regardless of cancer history. Conclusions Reported engagement in health behaviors was low, particularly for diet and exercise, and young adult cancer survivors were more likely to report smoking compared to controls. Task self-efficacy was strongly associated with meeting recommendations. Implications for Cancer Survivors Overall engagement in healthy behaviors was suboptimal and interventions that target task self-efficacy may support adherence to healthy lifestyle behaviors.