Prevalence and Characteristics of the Physical Activity in a Sample of Patients Undergoing Oncological Treatments

International guidelines include regular physical activity (PA) as a recommendation for cancer patients. Methods. Prevalence and frequency of regular PA, psychological status, as measured by Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use, treatment side-effects, clinical and sociodemographic characteristics have been measured in 405 patients (51.11% males). Results. 127 (31.36%) of them practiced PA. In the multivariate logistic regression, the PA was strongly and independently associated with CAM and dietary supplements use (OR 2.18; 95%CI 1.11-2.81; p-value = 0.024), and (negatively) with HADS-Depression (OR 0.26; 95%CI 0.12-0.55; p-value < 0.001), and fatigue (OR 0.55; 95%CI 0.34-0.87; p-value = 0.011) after adjustment for age, gender, and severity of cancer. Conclusions: Despite the documented benefits of PA, a large proportion of cancer patients do not reach the recommended levels of PA, suggesting that we need to find ways to make PA a standard part of cancer care, to detect case of depression and to treat fatigue. Professionals who work with cancer patients must be trained about how best to help cancer patients become physically active. Really important is to be connected in a network of specialists to “treat the patient” and not only his/her cancer.