Surviving to thriving: Virtual nutrition education in patients with breast cancer

Introduction: Improved outcomes in the treatment of breast cancer has increased the importance of formal survivorship.National guidelines and accreditation standards require institutional survivorship programs; however, implementation presents operational challenges.While existing literature affirms the need for clinician involvement in survivorship, applicability to virtual formats is unknown.Here we report our 3-year experience with design and implementation of virtual nutrition workshops in breast cancer survivorship.Materials and methods: Free virtual workshops were developed by an interdisciplinary team and offered to eligible participants on a quarterly basis.Workshop content focused on diet, nutrition, and exercise in cancer prevention, development, and recurrence.A question-and-answer session addressed misconceptions about nutrition and cancer.Participants were invited to participate in an evaluation survey after each workshop.Postworkshop assessment of course effectiveness was performed with a four-point Likert scale and qualitative comments.Results: 116 women participated in the workshops.Quarterly attendance consistently grew and averaged sixteen participants per session.Post workshop surveys demonstrated significant improvements in participants' knowledge, and likelihood of behavioral modification.93 % of participants had the highest rating for likelihood of making a change to their diet, and 83 % for likelihood of making changes to physical activity.Qualitative feedback supported both the effectiveness of the education as well as the virtual group setting.Conclusions: Virtual group workshops are effective for survivorship education.They present a feasible way to improve access to oncologic-trained dieticians for low-acuity concerns.The realistic design affords itself to easy reproducibility in other institutions seeking to implement disease-specific survivorship programs.