Surgery for breast cancer – Barriers and enablers to engagement with prehabilitation.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in Australia. Unfortunately, breast surgery can commonly result in loss of shoulder and neck movement, increased pain, and limited ability to participate in everyday life. Actively engaging in clinician-led exercise before surgery for breast cancer (prehabilitation) offers an opportunity to improve fitness, reduce long-term issues with shoulder movement, arm strength, and pain. Despite established benefits, the Barwon Health prehabilitation service was poorly utilised. This research aims to investigate why, with the goal of shaping a service that facilitates more people to access prehabilitation and potential improvements in patient outcomes relating to fitness, neck and upper limb pain, and dysfunction.