Introduction
Cancer guidelines recommend pre and rehabilitation exercise for people with cancer, however, current research shows these services are not well integrated into clinical practice. To date, there has been no prospective audit of Australian lung cancer exercise services or data collected on the characteristics of people with lung cancer accessing exercise services.
Aims
To describe the exercise pre and rehabilitation services available to people with lung cancer and the characteristics of people with lung cancer attending these services in Australia.
Methods
Prospective, observational, multicentre, five-day, point prevalence study. Australian health services providing specialist care to people with lung cancer and/or oncology or pulmonary rehabilitation were contacted to participate.
Results
402 services were contacted and 199 responded (50%). Of these, 69% (n=137) accepted referrals for people with lung cancer and 107 sites (78%) completed the survey. Most exercise services were targeted at respiratory disease (58%, n=60) compared with 31% cancer-specific (n=33) and 5% lung cancer-specific (n=5). Lung cancer were and rehabilitation services were predominantly in metro or inner regional areas (83%, n=89) and delivered in the public health setting (79%, n=84). Data were collected for 73 participants attending programs at 41 sites (38%). Mean (SD) age was 68.5 (9.7) years. 4% of participants (n=3) were culturally and linguistically diverse and no participants identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. 96% (n=70) of participants lived in major cities or inner regional areas. Program length was predominantly 3-7 weeks (58%, n=42). 19 outcomes were used in 51 combinations to assess participants (n=70) and 12 exercise interventions were delivered in 45 combinations (n=67).
Conclusions
Only approximately one-third of responding exercise programs offered specific oncology programs. During the data collection period, almost two-thirds of services did not provide services to people with lung cancer. High heterogeneity in outcome measures and exercise interventions was observed.