Background: With rising cancer survivorship rates, there is a need for high-quality survivorship care plans. Patient-centred interventions which include multiple lifestyle components are effective in changing behaviour, yet there is still a need for targeted health programs for people living with and beyond cancer (PLWBC) to improve their quality of life (QoL).

Objectives: To assess the feasibility of a multi-component lifestyle intervention (diet, physical activity (PA) and mental health) in PLWBC and determine its impact on their QoL.

 

Methods: 174 PLWBC were recruited at the University Hospital Son Espases (Palma). A total of 106 PLWBC participated in the lifestyle intervention and were randomly assigned to either the intervention (INT) or the control (CT) group. CT participants received written general recommendations, provided by the research team, based on guidelines from the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), and the American Cancer Society (ACS). INT participants received these recommendations together with a personalized consultation (month 1) with an oncology dietitian, a physical activity trainer, and a psychologist, along with a group session (month 2) (Figure 1. Study design). The intervention lasted three months. Participants completed the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire to assess QoL at baseline and post-intervention. Changes in “Global health status” score [0-100] and the overall “QLQ-C30 summary score” [0-100] were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test. Feasibility of the intervention was assessed using recruitment data (eligibility, reasons for non-participation, recruitment rate), participant adherence to the intervention, and retention and attrition rates. Studylogistics were also recorded throughout the study. Overall acceptability and participants’ perception of the intervention were assessed through an adapted version of the Research Participant Perception Survey–Long (RPPS-L), Broadcast Spanish version.

Results: From the initial 174 recruited, a total of 106 participants (63.5% female, mean age of 57.8 ± 12 years, 39% breast cancer) finally took part in the intervention (recruitment rate 60.9%). Retention rate was 96.2% (102/106 participants completing the study) and the attrition rate of 3.8% (4/106 participants withdrawing). The mean attendance rate across all visits was 90.4%. Overall study acceptability was high; when asked about their overall experience in this research study, participants gave it a mean score of 9.1 out of 10. Furthermore, after three months, participants in the INT group showed greater improvements in self-perceived global health status compared with CT (median score change: 8.3 INT vs. 0 CT; p = 0.04), as well as a trend toward improvement in the overall QLQ-C30 score (3.0 INT vs. −0.2 CT; p = 0.06).

Conclusions/implications: Our findings demonstrate that the proposed lifestyle intervention and study procedures are feasible, leading to an improvement in QoL of participants. Future research efforts will aim to optimize the protocol for a randomized controlled trial, drawing on insights provided by this study.