Development and assessment of a physical activity guidebook for the colon health and life-long exercise change

Background: We report the development and assessment of a physical activity (PA) guidebook called Step Up to the Challenge that is being used to support a PA behavior change intervention in a randomized trial examining PA and disease-free survival in colon cancer survivors. Methods: Content for the PA guidebook was constructed based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Expert judges (N = 51) included oncologists, rehabilitation practitioners, colon cancer survivors, and TPB researchers. All expert judges completed the Maine Area Health Education Center checklist for evaluating written health information. A subset of TPB expert judges (n = 11) also assessed the degree of match between the guidebook content and TPB constructs. Results: Expert judges indicated that the PA guidebook achieved desirable attributes for organization, writing style, appearance, appeal, feasibility, and appropriateness. For the TPB assessment, all mean item-content relevance ratings indicated at least a "very good match" between the PA guidebook content and the TPB constructs. Conclusions: Our guidebook successfully targets the TPB constructs known to influence PA behavior change and contains suitable and appropriate written health information. This guidebook will be an integral component of the behavioral support program designed to determine the effects of PA on disease-free survival in colon cancer survivors.