Television viewing time of colorectal cancer survivors is associated prospectively with quality of life.

Objective: To examine prospective associations of television viewing time with quality of life, following a colorectal cancer diagnosis.

Methods: One thousand, nine hundred and sixty-six colorectal cancer survivors were recruited through the Queensland Cancer Registry. Interviews were conducted at 5, 12, 24, and 36 months post-diagnosis. Generalized linear mixed models estimated the effects of television viewing time on quality of life.

Results: Participants who watched ≥5 h of television per day had a 16% lower total quality of life score than did participants reporting ≤2 h per day. Deleterious associations of television viewing time were found with all quality of life subscales: functional well-being showed the strongest association (23% difference in quality of life scores between highest and lowest television viewing categories), and social well-being the weakest association (6% difference). Participants who increased their television viewing by one category (e.g., ≤2 h, increasing to 3-4 h per day) had a proportional decrease of some 6% in their quality of life score (intra-individual effect).

Conclusions: The deleterious associations of television viewing time with quality of life were clinically significant and consistent over time. Decreasing sedentary behavior may be an important behavioral strategy to enhance the quality of life of cancer survivors.