Patient-reported outcomes evaluation and assessment of facilitators and barriers to physical activity in the Transplantoux aerobic exercise intervention

Evi Masschelein; Stefan De Smet; Kris Denhaerynck; Laurens J Ceulemans; Diethard Monbaliu; Sabina De Geest

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0273497

Patient-reported outcomes evaluation and assessment of facilitators and barriers to physical activity in the Transplantoux aerobic exercise intervention

PLoS One. 2022 Oct 26;17(10):e0273497. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273497. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Evi Masschelein¹, Stefan De Smet^{2

3}, Kris Denhaerynck⁴, Laurens J Ceulemans^{5

6}, Diethard Monbaliu^{2

3

7}, Sabina De Geest^{4

8}

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Exercise and Health, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland.
² Abdominal Transplantation, Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Transplantation, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
³ Transplantoux Foundation, Leuven, Belgium.
⁴ Institute of Nursing Science, Department Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
⁵ Thoracic Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁶ Chronic Diseases and Metabolism, Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases and Thoracic Surgery (BREATHE), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁷ Department of Abdominal Transplant Surgery, University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
⁸ Academic Centre for Nursing and Midwifery, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

Abstract

Background: Transplantoux's MVT exercise intervention prepares organ transplant recipients to cycle or hike up France's Mont Ventoux. We aimed to assess (i) MVT's effects on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and (ii) perceived barriers and facilitators to physical activity.

Methods: Using a hybrid design, a convenience sample of transplant recipients participating in MVT (n = 47 cycling (TxCYC); n = 18 hiking (TxHIK)), matched control transplant recipients (TxCON, n = 213), and healthy MVT participants (HCON, n = 91) completed surveys to assess physical activity (IPAQ), health-related quality of life (HRQOL; SF-36 and EuroQol VAS), mental health (GHQ-12), and depressive symptomatology, anxiety, and stress (DASS-21) at baseline, then after 3, 6 (Mont Ventoux climb), 9, and 12 months. TxCYC and TxHIK participated in a 6-month intervention of individualized home-based cycling/hiking exercise and a series of supervised group training sessions. Barriers and facilitators to physical activity (Barriers and Motivators Questionnaire) were measured at 12 months.

Results: Regarding PROs, except for reducing TxHIK stress levels, MVT induced no substantial intervention effects. For both TxCYC and TxHIK, between-group comparisons at baseline showed that physical activity, HRQOL, mental health, depressive symptomatology and stress were similar to those of HCON. In contrast, compared to TxCYC, TxHIK, and HCON, physical activity, HRQOL and mental health were lower in TxCON. TxCON also reported greater barriers, lower facilitators, and different priority rankings concerning physical activity barriers and facilitators.

Conclusion: Barely any of the PROs assessed in the present study responded to Transplantoux's MVT exercise intervention. TxCON reported distinct and unfavorable profiles regarding PROs and barriers and facilitators to physical activity. These findings can assist tailored physical activity intervention development.

Trial registration: Clinical trial notation: The study was approved by the University Hospitals Leuven's Institutional Review Board (B322201523602).

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Exercise Therapy
Exercise* / psychology
Humans
Mental Health
Patient Reported Outcome Measures
Quality of Life*

Grants and funding

DM is a senior clinical investigator of the Flanders, Belgium research foundation. This research was made possible thanks to the financial support of the government of Flanders (EBO EG 101 3300). EM and SDS were funded by the Transplantoux Foundation, Leuven, Belgium. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.