The Effectiveness of a Health Promotion Program on the Health Behaviors of Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Radiotherapy

Abstract

Breast cancer is a chronic disease that threatens women's health. Radiotherapy is one of the standard treatments for breast cancer patients. It may cause complications that affect the treatment plan and decrease the treatment’s efficiency. Therefore, prevention of complications is needed. The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a health promotion program, which was adapted from Pender's wellness concept, on the health behaviors of breast cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. This study was a quasi-experimental study with a one group, pretest-posttest design. The participants were breast cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy at the Ubon Ratchathani Cancer Hospital. The sample size was calculated using the single group mean comparison, which resulted in a sample size of 35 people. Then, simple random sampling was utilized to enroll participants based on their hospital numbers. The study was carried out over 12 weeks during which participants engaged in the six activities included in the experiment. The research tools consisted of: the experimental tool, which was the health promotion program for breast cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy and a questionnaire for data collection and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the program which included questions about demographic data, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, perceived self-efficacy, and the health promoting behaviors.  The quality of the tools was assessed by three experts by determining the validity of the content. The confidence was assessed by Cronbach's alpha coefficients, which were .80, .89 .82 and .69, respectively. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the means from before and after the experiment were compared by paired sample t-tests. The results showed that the average scores for perceived benefits, perceived barriers, perceived self-efficacy, and the health promoting behaviors were statistically significant higher at the P< 0.05, and that this helped to prevent complications resulting from the treatments. The patients received complete treatment according to the treatment plan. Therefore, this program should be applied and implemented for breast cancer patients receiving radiotherapy.