Education of instructors of a physical activity program for cancer patients and survivors: planning and evaluation of interactive adapted physical activity working groups

Introduction
Raviva is a Belgian adapted physical activity (APA) program for cancer patients and survivors, developed by the Belgian Foundation against Cancer (http://www.cancer.be/aide-aux-patients/la-fondation-votre-service/raviva-bouger-pour-se-sentir-mieux). Activities supported by this foundation are supervised by instructors with inconstant trainings and experiences. Indeed, in Belgium, APA instructors do not necessarily follow specific training programs such those proposed by the ACSM (Schmitz et al., 2010). As it is the case in sport coaches’ education (Erickson et al., 2008), interacting with colleagues and sharing knowledge could be an interesting way to improve APA instructors’ competencies. The aim of this study was to plan and analyse interactive APA working groups, as part of a training day intended for all Raviva instructors.
Methods
As part of this training, we proposed three practical physical activity working groups, each one concerning a specific activity: fitness, relaxation and aqua-aerobics. They were designed to generate some good practices in intervention with Raviva groups and had to be interactive: all participants had the opportunity to present their own practices and to discuss and comment the practices of the others. Three methods were used to analyse the activities: interviews of the organizers (n=4), a questionnaire for all trainees (n=35) and participant observation.
Results
Many examples of practical situations and good practices have been identified.79.4% of the trainees considered that the proposed method was interesting and 88.3% mentioned that they have been actively involved. The organizers were less convinced as they highlighted a lack of ideas sharing as well as low active participation and dynamism. Observations confirmed the organizers’ opinions.
Conclusions
Participants appeared to be globally satisfied with the practical activities. However, further research is needed to measure the impact of such methods on their future practices.