Background: The adherence to postoperative upper limb functional exercise in breast cancer (BC) patients is poor which can lead to adverse health outcomes. Effective intervention content to improve adherence is still unclear. The information-motivation-behavioral skills (IMB) model is a theoretical model that has been widely used to promote health behavior in many disease populations and may, therefore, help to explain and promote adherence to functional exercise. In this study, we validated the IMB model in a sample of postoperative BC patients.
Methods: A cross-sectional study of 165 postoperative patients with BC was performed in a hospital. We collected information on demographics, functional exercise knowledge (information), personal and social motivation (motivation), objective skills and self-efficacy (behavioral skills), and functional exercise adherence (behavior). Measured variable path analyses were applied for the IMB framework.
Results: The IMB elements explained 37.9% of the variance in adherence. As predicted, behavioral skills had a direct effect on adherence (β = 0.509; P < 0.05) and mediated the effects of knowledge (indirect effect 0.092, P < 0.05) and motivation (indirect effect 0.251, P < 0.05) on adherence.
Conclusions: Behavioral skills have a direct effect on functional exercise adherence and a mediating effect on the influence of knowledge and motivation on adherence. Thus, these factors represent key determinants of exercise adherence. The IMB model could be applied to the upper limb exercise adherence of postoperative BC patients. These findings indicate that the promotion of exercise adherence interventions may benefit from targeting patients' exercise adherence-related knowledge, motivation, and behavioral skills.
Keywords: BC; Information–motivation–behavioral skills model; Upper limb functional exercise.