The association between future time perspective and health behavior among patients with colorectal cancer: a moderated mediation model

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between Future Time Perspective (FTP) and health behavior among patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), as well as the mediating role of intention and the moderating roles of behavior prepotency and self-regulatory capacity. A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted from April to June 2025, including 635 postoperative patients with CRC from three tertiary hospitals in China. Participants completed validated scales measuring FTP, intention, health behavior, behavior prepotency, and self-regulatory capacity.

A moderated mediation model was tested using the PROCESS macro (Model 16) with bootstrapping. FTP was positively associated with both health behavior and intention. Intention was positively associated with health behavior.

Behavior prepotency significantly moderated the intention-health behavior association, but the index of moderated mediation was not significant; self-regulatory capacity significantly moderated the indirect effect. Overall, these findings are consistent with a dual-pathway pattern in which FTP is directly associated with health behavior and indirectly associated with it through intention, with behavior prepotency and self-regulatory capacity playing distinct moderating roles. The cross-sectional design precludes causal or temporal inferences.

We gratefully acknowledge all the participants for their valuable information, time, and dedication. This study was supported by the Project of “Nursing Science” Funded by the 4th Priority Discipline Development Program of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (Jiangsu Education Department (2023) No.11) and the 2026 Jiangsu Provincial Social Science Applied Research Premium Project—Special Topic on Social Education (Social Science Popularization) (26SJA-17). School of Nursing, Nanjing Medical University, 101 Longmian Road, Nanjing, 211166, Jiangsu, China Xiaoxiao Hu, Ruoyi Xu, Jun Luo, Chulei Tang & Yanfei Jin Tianjin People’ s Hospital, Tianjin, China The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China The authors declare no competing interests.

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Nanjing Medical University Ethics Committee (Ethics No: 2024 − 398; Approved Institution: Nanjing Medical University Ethics Committee). Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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