A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Exercise on Cancer-Related Fatigue among Women with Breast Cancer Admitted in Erode Cancer Centre, Erode

Background: Fatigue or tiredness is recognized as symptoms of cancer and its treatment. Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a subjective experience, affecting 70 to 100% of the cancer patient population. It has a profound effect on the whole person, physically, emotionally and mentally, and can persist for months or even years following completion of treatment. It can have a phenomenal impact on a patient's life, interfering with daily activities and also may potentially have devastating social and economic consequences.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of Exercise on cancer-related fatigue among women with Breast cancer.

Design: Non- equalent pre-test, post test control group design was adopted for the study. Setting: Erode cancer centre, Erode.

Participants: 50 patients with Breast Cancer fulfilling the inclusion criteria were selected by purposive sampling.

Methods: A pre test was conducted by using piper fatigue scale. Immediately after pre test walking might be 20 to 30 minutes sessions, 5 times per week was given and again after one month post test was conducted to assess the effectiveness of exercises. Collected data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: In pre-test control group 52% had moderate fatigue, 32%had mild fatigue and 16%had severe fatigue, whereas in post-test 64% had moderate fatigue, 28%had severe fatigue and 8%had mild fatigue. In pre-test experimental group 72% had moderate fatigue and 28%had severe fatigue, whereas in post-test 84% had mild fatigue, and 16%had moderate fatigue. In experimental group mean post-test score of cancer-related fatigue 55.5 was less than the mean post-test score of cancer-related fatigue 121.8 of control group. The obtained Unpaired't' value at df (48) was 10.74, which is significant at 0.05 level. There was a significant association between the post-test Cancer-related fatigue scores of experimental group and variables like occupation (Fisher Exact Test=0.041, P< 0.05) and Monthly income ( Fisher Exact Test² = 0.031 , p < 0.05). But there was no significant association with other variables like age, education, religion, marital status, stage of illness and duration of hospitalization.. Conclusion: The findings shows exercise has a significant effect in reducing Cancer-related fatigue of experimental group than control group. So the researcher concluded that exercise has played a significant role in reducing Cancerrelated fatigue