Background: Exercise is an important adjunct therapy for people receiving cancer treatment but is rarely provided as part of standard oncology care. Investigations into how to deliver exercise within oncology have primarily considered the perspectives of oncology care providers (e.g., doctors, nurses) and people receiving treatment, with the needs of the exercise professionals themselves being largely overlooked. This study aimed to understand what exercise professionals working within oncology care need in order to more effectively deliver care to people with cancer.
Methods: A community conversation was facilitated by the Consumer and Community Involvement Program of Western Australia. A snowball recruitment campaign was launched to reach exercise professionals in the Perth area to participate in a 2-hour workshop. Participants were presented with a 10-minute introduction, then led through an open discussion based on three main questions: 1) What are the barriers/challenges and 2) What are the facilitators to delivering exercise services to people living with cancer; and 3) How would you improve exercise oncology services? Audio recordings were transcribed and analysed thematically.
Results: Fourteen exercise professionals, (female=57%, aged groups 24-44 years=64%, University training in exercise science=85%). Key themes included (q1) “working in the dark” with no access to patient’s medical history; (q2) wanting a “peer supported learning environment” to provide a forum for people working in the discipline to network and learn from each other; and (q3) wanting “standardised referral systems” to automatically provide exercise referral to all patients to ensure no patients miss out on receiving the benefits of exercise (Q3).
Conclusions: Exercise oncology professionals should be included when discussing how to improve exercise delivery. Peer support networks for exercise professionals were proposed to support the workforce in providing care to this group of patients.