ArticlePloS one2025
Promoting or pressurising participation? A discourse analysis of online patient information resources about prehabilitation before cancer treatment.
Article in PloS one, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Psychological, social, and behavioral barriers and facilitators to prehabilitation before cancer surgery: a qualitative systematic review.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Pooled it
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Prehabilitation aims to improve outcomes by optimising health before treatment. Interventions typically target diet, physical activity and/or mental health. Communicating the benefits of prehabilitation may influence patients' engagement in interventions. However, the evidence for prehabilitation prior to cancer treatment is replete with uncertainties. Synthesising and communicating the efficacy of prehabilitation is challenging. This study aims to understand how evidence, motivation and accessibility are balanced in online patient-facing resources about prehabilitation. Databases, search engines and websites (identified by prehabilitation researchers) were systematically searched for patient-facing resources from UK organisations about prehabilitation before cancer treatment. Search strategies were built from non-technical synonyms for three terms: prehabilitation, cancer, and patient information. Results were screened against predefined eligibility criteria. The Quality Evaluation Scoring Tool assessment informed purposive sampling. Included resources were interrogated using discourse analysis. Screening of 3394 search results identified 68 resources from which a sample of 25 was analysed. Two themes summarised how resources presented prehabilitation to patients. Resources influenced rather than informed patients about participation in prehabilitation. Benefits were presented with emphasis, certainty and authority whereas limitations or alternatives were rarely discussed. The information focused on individual motivation rather than acknowledging patients' resources or systemic barriers. Overall, it functioned to convince patients to participate in prehabilitation. Promoting prehabilitation in patient-facing literature may be beneficial. However, this relies upon two assumptions: firstly, that this communication approach is effective at increasing participation in practice, and secondly, that prehabilitation itself is 'beneficial'. When outcomes prioritised by patients are not established, and evidence remains uncertain, this is not guaranteed. Overpromoting the benefits of prehabilitation risks giving patients unrealistic expectations. Allocating responsibility to individuals may risk introducing patient blame and guilt in the event of treatment complications. Further research is required to understand how patients experience information resources and to define the patient-centred outcomes of prehabilitation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.