Barriers and resources for health behavior changes among African American cancer survivors: A focus group pilot study

Research suggests that improvement in health behavior changes such higher quality, lower calorie diets and increased physical activity are linked to reduced risk for cancer recurrence. Studies indicate that African Americans health behaviors include eating diets that are high in fat and low in fruits and/or vegetables, and low participation in regular physical activity. Further, African American cancer survivors report more comorbidities and have lower survival rates than women in other ethnic group.   The purpose of this pilot study focus group was to understand perceived barriers to healthy lifestyle among female African American breast cancer survivors.   Qualitative data were obtained from six focus groups (N = 50 participants) using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis.    Three prominent themes emerged from the analysis of the focus group interviews with the urban cancer survivors: Results indicated that a majority of the women reported at least 1 comorbid condition, with close to half reporting 2 or more conditions related to diet and exercise.  Barriers to healthy behaviors included economic, medical, and lifestyle factors and lack of information.   Women also discussed valuable resources that assisted them in coping with the diagnosis and services needed to help achieve healthy life styles.   Focus groups provided rich details on the barriers and facilitators for behavior change. Our findings begin to address the gap in our knowledge of African American breast cancer survivors’ health behaviors and highlight the need for culturally competent health behavior interventions.