Prehabilitation in oesophageal cancer care: a qualitative study of what moves patients

Personalised interventions are recommended to optimise participation in prehabilitation programmes, but this requires insight into what motivates patients to participate in, and complete, such programmes. We investigated the experiences of patients with oesophageal cancer who had participated in a prehabilitation programme, with a view to identifying factors that contribute to programme participation. Methods: This multicentre, qualitative study included patients who had completed a curative trajectory of neoadjuvant che moradiotherapy and surgery for oesophageal cancer and who had been ofered a multimodal prehabilitation programme in the period between chemoradiotherapy and surgery. Prehabilitation consisted of nutritional support and a supervised physical training programme. Data were collected after surgery using semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using an inductive thematic analysis