How Easy-to-Follow Exercises Can Help Cancer Patients With Anxiety While Receiving Chemotherapy

July 31, 2025 updated by: Christine Mavrogiannopoulou

The Effect of Mild Exercise While Receiving Chemotherapy on the Psychology of the Cancer Patient

Cancer is one of the main causes of death, and this study looks at how light exercise and stretching might reduce anxiety in patients receiving chemotherapy. The research took place in a hospital's daily care unit and used a study design where each patient was compared to themselves, measuring anxiety before and after the exercise program.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

45

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Greece
    • Kifissia
      • Athens, Kifissia, Greece, 14564
        • General Oncological Hospital of Kifisia Oi Agioi Anargyroi

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adult patients (>18 years old) with cancer receiving chemotherapy
  • Signed patient consent

Exclusion Criteria:

  • The denial of the patient
  • The occurrence of side effects from the treatment (such as dizziness, nausea, severe fatigue)
  • Patients with low cognitive level where they could not follow simple instructions
  • Patients with hearing disorders that prevented them from following simple instructions
  • Patients who could not mobilize independently.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Mild exercise and stretching
They received individualized workout and stretching programme to relieve some of the stress
Other: Mild Exercise and stretches
For 15 minutes the patient received an individualized mild workout program intending to relax and relieve some of his stress. The workout includes deep breaths, easy-to-do exercises, and stretches from lying on the bed, sitting in a chair, or standing. I always followed the patient's tempo and provided him with as many breaks as he needed.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
The Change in the Anxiety Assessment Scale (STAI-State) for Cancer Patients Receiving Chemotherapy Doing Mild Exercises and Stretches
Time Frame: Baseline and approximately 20 minutes post-intervention
The STAI-State (Greek version, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory -STAI-) will be used to assess anxiety levels in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, before and after a brief exercise intervention. The STAI-State scale has a 20-item questionnaire where individuals rate how they feel at a particular moment on a scale from "not at all" to "very much so." "Not at all" equal to 1, "Somewhat" to 2, "Moderately so" to 3, "Very much so" to 4. Scores are submitted and range from 20 to 80, with higher scores indicating greater anxiety. No subscale is required to compute At baseline (Time = 0 minutes), participants complete the STAI-State scale. They then engage in a 15-minute mild exercise and stretching program tailored to their physical condition. In some cases, particularly among younger participants, the session may be conducted in small groups of up to 2 individuals. Immediately post-intervention (approximately 20 minutes from baseline), participants complete the STAI-State scale again.
Baseline and approximately 20 minutes post-intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Christine Mavrogiannopoulou

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

December 2, 2024

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 24, 2025

Study Completion (Actual)

March 24, 2025

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

March 24, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 17, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

April 24, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 1, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 31, 2025

Last Verified

July 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 779/15-1-2024

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

IPD will not be shared because this research doesn't require the reproduction of special types of patients. They need to have cancer, receive chemotherapy, and be adults.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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