Impact of COVID-19 on health care and quality of life in women with breast cancer

Background: The aims of this study were to explore the impact of COVID-19 on health-care services and quality of life (QoL) in women diagnosed with breast cancer (BC) in Ireland and whether the impact varied by social determinants of health (SDH). Methods: Women diagnosed with BC completed a questionnaire measuring the impact of COVID-19, disruption to BC services, QoL, SDH, and clinical covariates during COVID-19 restrictions. The association between COVID-19 impact and disruption to BC services and QoL was assessed using multivariable regression with adjustment for SDH and clinical covariates. An interaction between COVID-19 impact and health insurance status was assessed within the regression models. Results: A total of 30.5% (n = 109) of women reported high COVID-19 impact, and these women experienced more disruption in BC services (odds ratio = 4.95, 95% confidence interval = 2.28 to 10.7, P Conclusions: There was a large disruption to BC services and decrease in QoL for women with BC in Ireland during the pandemic. However, the impact was not the same for all women. It is important that women with BC are reintegrated into proper care and QoL is addressed through multidisciplinary support services.</p

Juggling with theory, evidence, practice, and real-world circumstances: Development of a complex community intervention to increase physical activity in inactive adults aged 50 years and older – The Move for Life Study

Despite well-known benefits of physical activity, in Ireland only 38 % of older adults are sufficiently active. Behavioural interventions are rarely developed systematically and, when reported, inadequate description often becomes a barrier for subsequent replication and scalability. In this article, we describe the development and characteristics of Move for Life, an intervention to reach and help inactive adults aged 50 years and older in crease their physical activity. It was designed to fit within existing group-based structured physical activity programmes run by Local Sports Partnerships, thus maximising the likelihood of translation into policy and practice. Constructs from social cognitive theory, self-determination theory, and the conceptual model of group cohesion in exercise informed the conceptual model and the development of behavioural skills, social support, and group cohesion intervention strategies. Physical activity instructors supported by peer mentors, who also contributed to sustaining the intervention, implemented these strategies. Moving away from accounts of inter vention development as a relatively simple linear process, we illustrate the complex interplay of theory, evi dence, practice, and real-world contextual circumstances that shaped the development of Move for Life. Against this backdrop, we discuss issues relevant to the planning and reporting of behavioural and physical activity interventions in public health