Access to appointments and medicines was among the areas in which participants described improvements. Many said the “Mawid: My Appointment” system made it easier to book primary-care appointments, while “Wasfaty: My Prescription” improved access to medications for some users. These reported benefits did not extend uniformly across the patient population. Older adults and people with limited digital literacy or poor internet connectivity encountered additional barriers when using the digital services. Participants also raised practical concerns about limited parking, restricted appointment flexibility and long travel distances to obtain medications in some areas. The study therefore documents a combination of reported gains and continuing access problems, rather than a uniform experience of reform.

Patients emphasized the importance of relational continuity in primary care. They valued seeing the same physician over time and associated repeated contact with a familiar clinician with trust and familiarity. Frequent physician turnover was reported to weaken that continuity. Electronic medical records provided a different form of support by supporting informational continuity across providers, allowing patient information to remain available when care involved different clinicians. The focus-group findings distinguish these two aspects of continuity: participants appreciated both the transfer of clinical information and the personal familiarity developed through an enduring physician-patient relationship.

Coordination between primary and secondary care also showed a mixed picture. Participants reported that the “Ehalati: My Referral” system improved the speed of referrals and access to specialist care. Communication gaps between primary and secondary care providers nevertheless remained common. In primary health care centres, participants acknowledged greater availability of laboratory, X-ray, dental and mental health services, indicating improvements in the comprehensiveness of care available at this level. Availability within primary care centres did not mean that access was consistently straightforward. Long waiting times and limited appointment availability remained major concerns in dental care, while mental health services were described as less visible and inconsistently available.

As a qualitative focus-group study, the research cannot establish how common these experiences were among all Saudi patients or measure changes in service use, health outcomes or equity over time. The sample comprised 44 purposively recruited participants in 11 focus groups spanning four Saudi regions, and the conclusions are based on the themes that emerged from their accounts. Within that scope, the study documents how structural expansion and digital services coexist with uneven access, interruptions in continuity, communication failures between care levels and gaps in specialized services. The authors concluded that successful primary healthcare transformation requires more than structural and technological change, with sustained attention needed for equitable access, stable patient-provider relationships and integration across services.

Subject of Research: Patient experiences of primary healthcare reforms in Saudi Arabia

Article Title: Patients’ perspectives on primary healthcare reforms in Saudi Arabia: a qualitative focus group study

Article References: Mubarky, A., Almalki, M., Hulme, C., Valderas, J. M., Porter, I., Moafa, H. N., & Pitchforth, E. (2026). Patients’ perspectives on primary healthcare reforms in Saudi Arabia: a qualitative focus group study. BMC Health Services Research. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-15518-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12913-026-15518-7

Keywords: Saudi Arabia, primary healthcare, healthcare reform, patient perspectives, focus groups, qualitative research, digital health, care continuity, referral coordination, healthcare access, Patients, perspectives

Levodopa infusion therapy is a device-aided treatment that may be introduced when oral medication no longer provides adequate control of Parkinson’s disease symptoms. The study did not evaluate a numerical treatment effect or compare outcomes between groups. Instead, it focused on how patients and caregivers experienced the treatment process. The analysis identified four shared themes: living with the constraints of Parkinson’s disease, sustaining hope in the face of therapeutic uncertainty, adapting to a new treatment while facing practical challenges, and relying on expertise while managing its absence.

Pump therapy was often chosen when participants felt they had limited alternatives, and both patients and caregivers expressed strong trust in specialized multidisciplinary Parkinson’s disease teams. Participants generally reported that their expectations had been met, and both groups described symptom improvements. The priorities expressed by the two groups were not identical, however. People with Parkinson’s disease focused on autonomy, whereas caregivers focused more heavily on the responsibilities associated with treatment. The findings show that initiating and adapting to a levodopa pump involved adjustments in daily routines, responsibilities and expectations, not only changes in symptom experience.

Caregivers frequently said they had not been adequately informed about the realities of daily pump management. The study therefore identified a gap between access to specialist expertise and the practical information needed by families once treatment was underway. The authors concluded that supporting adaptation requires coordinated, person-centred preparation, guidance and follow-up from multidisciplinary specialist teams. Because the evidence comes from a small qualitative sample in two Swedish university hospitals, the findings describe the experiences reported by these participants and are not presented as a general measure of treatment effectiveness or long-term clinical benefit. The study was not a clinical trial, and its results center on perceptions and experiences rather than the prevention of complications or changes in motor-function endpoints.

Subject of Research: Patient and caregiver experiences of initiating levodopa pump therapy for Parkinson’s disease

Article Title: Initiating levodopa pump therapy: a qualitative study of patient and caregiver perspectives

Article References: Scharfenort, M., Nobrell, A., Garon, M., Rosqvist, K., Paul, G., Nilsson, M. H., Antonini, A., Nyholm, D., Odin, P., & Mangrio, E. (2026). Initiating levodopa pump therapy: a qualitative study of patient and caregiver perspectives. BMC Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-05527-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12912-026-05527-6

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, levodopa pump therapy, device-aided treatment, qualitative research, patient perspectives, caregiver perspectives, treatment adaptation, multidisciplinary care, symptom management, Initiating, levodopa, pump

Researchers used convenience and snowball recruitment, identifying potential participants through an earlier research project, professional networks and social media. Virtual and in-person focus groups took place between November and December 2024, with discussions audio-recorded and evaluated using framework analysis. Timeliness was a central concern among both participant groups.

Consumers, carers and clinicians supported measuring indicators that show how promptly care is delivered, although they regarded established timeliness expectations as “aspirational.” Their comments indicated that timeliness should form part of a broader assessment of care quality rather than stand alone as the only reported measure. Participants also valued information about other care domains. They called for feedback on diagnostic testing, treatment and multidisciplinary team meeting review so that recipients could gain a more complete understanding of lung cancer care.

The focus groups identified these subjects as important components of feedback, but they did not test particular dashboard designs or compare reporting systems. Data accuracy was described as critically important. Participants also wanted feedback to be actionable and engaging, suggesting that the content and delivery of audit results should meet the needs of the people expected to use them.

Their recommendations support an approach combining several care domains with delivery methods capable of encouraging engagement among both consumer and clinician audiences. Participants raised the potential for audit and feedback interventions to expose inequities in health systems and cancer care. They viewed organizational information—particularly case volume, infrastructure and staffing—as useful for contextualizing results.

Such information can help recipients interpret the organizational setting in which a service operates, while the focus-group findings do not establish how any particular indicator or reporting format would affect care. Public reporting drew a qualified response. Participants acknowledged the hypothetical possibility that making lung cancer quality-of-care information public could have a positive impact, while also identifying possible concerns.

Because the research collected views through focus groups rather than evaluating a reporting intervention, it cannot establish whether public reporting improves care, changes clinician behavior or influences consumer decisions. Overall, the participants recommended comprehensive, customized and interactive approaches to lung cancer quality-of-care feedback. The study provides a qualitative account of priorities expressed by 21 consumers or carers and 18 clinicians, rather than evidence that a specific intervention is effective.

Its convenience and snowball recruitment and relatively small participant groups also mean that the views may not represent everyone affected by lung cancer or involved in its treatment.

Subject of Research: Consumer, carer and clinician preferences for presenting lung cancer quality-of-care data

Article Title: Closing the feedback loop: understanding consumer, carer and clinician perspectives on the presentation of lung cancer quality of care data – a focus group study

Article References: Nash, J., Harrison, N. J., Bolton, A., Dodd, R. H., & Brims, F. (2026). Closing the feedback loop: understanding consumer, carer and clinician perspectives on the presentation of lung cancer quality of care data – a focus group study. BMC Health Services Research. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-026-15735-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12913-026-15735-0

Keywords: lung cancer, quality of care, audit and feedback, focus groups, patient perspectives, clinician perspectives, care timeliness, organizational context, public reporting, health equity, Closing, feedback

The research team, led by Nicholas B. Washmuth of Samford University and The University of Alabama in Huntsville, together with colleagues from clinics in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, set out to answer a question that has rarely been tested with real patients: when a clinician swears, do patients actually care? Swearing is a nearly universal feature of human communication, with surveys showing that 58 percent of people report swearing sometimes or often, over 70 percent of adults frequently or occasionally hear others swear in public, and 57 percent of employees acknowledge swearing in the workplace. Yet in healthcare, the impact of clinician swearing on patients has remained unclear, with limited evidence pointing in conflicting directions.

Earlier studies offered mixed signals. In one set of experiments on physician communication, patients rated doctors who swore lower in satisfaction, expertise, trustworthiness, and approachability, yet the same patients also perceived the swearing physicians as more human and relatable, and many said they would still choose to see that doctor again. In mental health settings, a survey of 50 patients whose therapists had used swear words found overwhelmingly positive responses: 92 percent said therapists should be able to swear around their clients, 80 percent reported that the swearing helped their therapeutic relationship, and over 88 percent described an explicitly positive experience. Case reports in physical therapy showed similarly mixed but generally acceptable patient reactions, with neither patient in the cases finding the swearing offensive or unprofessional.

To build on this sparse evidence, the team conducted a cross-sectional, mixed methods, retrospective study with 57 physical rehabilitation patients, 34 females and 23 males, with a mean age of 40.39 years. Patients were recruited from two physical therapy clinics in Alabama and one chiropractic clinic in Ontario, Canada, over a 10-month period from August 2024 to May 2025. Each patient completed an anonymous 14-item survey on the day of discharge, a timing choice designed to ensure accurate recollections and reduce social desirability bias, since patients were no longer receiving care and had nothing to gain from flattering their clinicians. The survey assessed experiences, perceptions, and attitudes toward clinician swearing, and the full instrument and dataset are available in an Open Science Framework repository.

The quantitative results were striking. Thirty-one patients, or 54.39 percent, reported that their clinician used swear words during their sessions, and among those who swore, 61.29 percent did so more than once per visit. Among the 31 patients who experienced clinician swearing, 61.13 percent said it increased their motivation, 58.06 percent reported improved self-confidence, and 51.61 percent said it supported their adherence to treatment. No patient reported that swearing decreased any of these outcomes. Furthermore, 54.84 percent agreed or strongly agreed that the swearing was patient-centered, and 64.52 percent said it improved their rehabilitation experience, while 80.65 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed that it was unprofessional and 96.77 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed that they were offended.

The researchers also tested whether swearing frequency, dichotomized into high, more than once per session, versus low, once per session or less, predicted patient outcomes using logistic and linear regressions. Patients in the high-frequency group generally reported greater motivation, self-confidence, and adherence than those in the low-frequency group, but the confidence intervals for these effects were wide and included null values, reflecting the small sample size and limited statistical power. The only statistically significant finding was that high-frequency swearing was associated with higher ratings of patient-centeredness, B = −1.00, 95% CI (−1.95, −0.05), p = 0.04, though the authors emphasize that even this confidence interval spans a wide range. Because the study was exploratory and underpowered, the team deliberately emphasized descriptive statistics and confidence intervals over p-values, noting that hypothesis testing with p-values can be unreliable in underpowered studies.

The qualitative side of the study used cognitive network analyses, processing patients’ open-ended responses into single-word terms and building networks that depicted important concepts and their associations. When asked when it is appropriate for a clinician to swear, patients focused on the impact on the therapeutic relationship. Swearing was judged acceptable when it served to motivate, encourage, or affirm progress, when it built rapport and comfort, and when it expressed empathy, humor, or solidarity. One patient described appropriate swearing as motivational, affirming, and complimentary, while another said it depended on the relationship the clinician had built with the patient. These responses align with sociolinguistic findings that swearing can reduce social distance, signal shared identity, and communicate authenticity.

When asked when swearing is inappropriate, patients centered their answers on individual patient characteristics. Many highlighted age, noting that swearing should be avoided with young children and with older adults, reflecting generational differences in tolerance of taboo language. Others emphasized patient comfort and consent, with one respondent saying swearing is inappropriate if the client is not comfortable with it and another if a patient has explicitly stated so. Patients also cautioned against swearing directed at rather than with the patient, swearing in frustration or anger, and swearing during serious clinical conversations. Notably, a subset of patients rejected clinician swearing outright, responding simply with never or always inappropriate, underscoring that while many patients view swearing as conditionally acceptable, it remains unacceptable for others.

The authors interpret these findings through the lens of established rehabilitation science. Motivation in physical rehabilitation is increasingly understood as dynamic and shaped by social and environmental factors, including the clinician’s interpersonal style, and clinicians perceived as kind, welcoming, and genuinely engaged can positively influence patient motivation. Swearing, when used appropriately, may contribute to a relaxed, authentic clinical atmosphere that fosters rapport and communicates solidarity. Self-confidence, which commonly declines after injury and is strongly associated with functional outcomes, can be restored through verbal persuasion, and swearing during encouragement may deliver a more intense and emotionally resonant form of that persuasion. Adherence, closely tied to the therapeutic alliance, may benefit when swearing injects humor and informality into sessions, making rehabilitation feel less sterile and more engaging.

Importantly, the study suggests that swearing may operate more as a threshold effect than a dose-response effect. Higher frequency did not reliably increase perceptions of unprofessionalism or offensiveness, and frequent swearing was actually linked with greater perceptions of patient-centeredness, but the presence of swearing itself, rather than its frequency, may drive patient perceptions. The authors also note that different swear words carry different levels of impact, which were not measured in this study and could complicate simple frequency effects. The team offers practical recommendations: when in doubt, don’t swear; use it sparingly and with purpose; align with patient preferences; never swear in anger or at the patient; and prioritize authenticity. The researchers caution that the findings are preliminary, underpowered, and context-dependent, and they call for preregistered, confirmatory studies with larger, more representative samples across diverse clinical settings before swearing can be recommended as a clinical strategy.

Subject of Research: Patient perspectives on clinician swearing during physical rehabilitation

Article Title: Do patients give a damn? An exploratory study of patient perspectives on clinician swearing during physical rehabilitation

Article References: Mercer, A., Meakins, A., St. Martin, R., Trummer, G., Geoghagan, L., Muscha, K., & Washmuth, N. B. (2026). Do patients give a damn? An exploratory study of patient perspectives on clinician swearing during physical rehabilitation. Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences, 7, Article 1719743. https://doi.org/10.3389/fresc.2026.1719743

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fresc.2026.1719743

Keywords: swearing, physical rehabilitation, patient perspectives, therapeutic alliance, motivation, self-confidence, treatment adherence, patient-centered care, communication, physiotherapy, patients, give

The study was led by Hazal Sonbahar Ulu of Akdeniz University, together with colleagues from Hacettepe University, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, and Ankara Etlik City Hospital. The team conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with nine patients aged between 58 and 87 who were hospitalized in the palliative care unit of a tertiary care hospital in Turkey. Rather than measuring meaning with standardized scales, the researchers used qualitative content analysis grounded in established thematic analysis methodology, allowing the patients’ own words and experiences to shape the findings. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ankara Etlik City Hospital Scientific Research Ethics Committee, and all participants gave written informed consent before taking part.

From those interviews, four interrelated themes emerged. Family, spirituality, hope, and psychological adaptation stood out as the primary sources of meaning, providing what the authors describe as emotional security, continuity, and resilience throughout the palliative care process. For many participants, the presence of relatives was not merely comforting but constitutive of their sense of self; being a parent, spouse, or grandparent remained a living identity even as illness stripped away other roles. Spiritual and religious practices similarly anchored patients, offering a framework in which suffering could be interpreted and the future, however uncertain, could be faced with equanimity.

The second theme concerned participation in daily occupations, a term occupational therapists use to cover everything from self-care to leisure and social engagement. Patients in the study drew meaning from ordinary activities: holding conversations with visitors, watching television, performing religious practices, and maintaining other meaningful routines. These occupations supported psychological stability, but the researchers found they were frequently constrained by two forces. The first was functional decline, as advancing illness eroded the physical capacity needed to do even simple things. The second was the structure of the care environment itself, which offered few organized opportunities for activity. In other words, patients often wanted to remain engaged with life but found the setting worked against them.

That environmental dimension formed the third theme. Supportive relationships with healthcare professionals fostered trust and emotional comfort, reinforcing patients’ sense that they were still persons worth caring for rather than bodies to be managed. Conversely, noise, shared rooms, lack of privacy, and limited communal spaces hindered engagement and undermined well-being. This finding aligns with a growing body of research on environmental design for end-of-life care, which has shown that institutional settings can either buffer or amplify the distress of advanced illness. The Turkish study adds a patient-voiced perspective, emphasizing that a ward’s acoustics and architecture are not cosmetic concerns but active ingredients in the experience of meaning at the end of life.

The fourth theme reached into the past. When patients reflected on the roles and occupational identities they had held before illness, as workers, caregivers, and active members of their communities, they revealed both continuity and disruption of self. Some participants managed to carry forward a coherent narrative in which their present suffering was woven into a lifelong story; others experienced the loss of function as a rupture that made meaning-making harder. This tension between continuity and disruption highlights a central challenge of advanced illness: the body changes faster than identity can adapt, and care systems rarely provide structured support for that adaptation.

The findings arrive at a moment when palliative care worldwide is shifting away from a purely biomedical model toward holistic approaches that address physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs together. Meaning in life has been identified as a key determinant of quality of life in advanced illness, and systematic reviews of meaning-centered interventions have shown promising results. Yet, as the authors note, patient perspectives on how meaning is actually constructed within inpatient settings have remained underexplored. By listening directly to patients in a Turkish tertiary hospital, the study fills a gap that quantitative measures of well-being often obscure: the texture of what makes daily life worth living when cure is no longer the goal.

The practical implications are concrete. The authors argue that integrating occupation-focused interventions, spiritual care, and environmental modifications within palliative care services may help preserve continuity, dignity, and emotional well-being. In practice, this could mean occupational therapists designing adapted activities that let patients continue valued routines despite physical limitations, chaplains and nurses systematically addressing spiritual needs rather than treating them as optional extras, and hospital architects prioritizing privacy, quiet, and communal spaces where patients can gather with families. A recent scoping review of occupational therapists’ roles in palliative and hospice care suggests this workforce remains underutilized, and the new study provides qualitative evidence for why expanding it matters.

The study’s limitations are those inherent to its design. With nine participants drawn from a single palliative care unit in one Turkish hospital, the findings cannot be generalized across cultures, care settings, or illness trajectories. Qualitative research aims for depth and trustworthiness rather than statistical representativeness, and the authors followed established criteria for rigor in thematic analysis, but they acknowledge that future multicenter and longitudinal studies are needed to examine meaning-making across different contexts and disease courses. Such work could test whether the four themes identified here, family, spirituality, hope, and adaptation, hold stable over time or shift as patients move between hospital, hospice, and home.

Even so, the study’s central message resonates far beyond its sample. Faced with terminal illness, people do not simply surrender meaning; they actively rebuild it from the materials available to them, the love of family, the consolation of faith, the stubborn persistence of hope, and the quiet dignity of a familiar routine. The phrase that gives the study its title, a patient’s declaration that life still has meaning, captures a finding that clinicians and hospital administrators would do well to take seriously. Palliative care that treats meaning as a clinical target, alongside pain and symptom control, may not extend life, but the evidence increasingly suggests it can transform its quality. In a field where the outcome is ultimately the same for every patient, that transformation may be the most meaningful metric of all.

Subject of Research: Sources of meaning in life among inpatient palliative care patients

Article Title: “Life still has meaning for me!” Exploring sources of meaningful life among palliative care patients: a qualitative study

Article References: Sonbahar Ulu, H., Güney Yılmaz, G., Baysal Yiğit, A., Cesur, E. M., Sarışen, Ş., Bozkuş, R., & Şahin, S. (2026). “Life still has meaning for me!” Exploring sources of meaningful life among palliative care patients: a qualitative study. Supportive Care in Cancer, 34(10), Article 972. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-026-11189-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s00520-026-11189-6

Keywords: palliative care, meaning in life, spirituality, qualitative research, occupational therapy, quality of life, patient perspectives, end-of-life care, psychological adaptation, hospital environment, occupational identity, hope

The research, published in Supportive Care in Cancer, involved twelve adults with advanced bladder or renal cancer receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy at a tertiary cancer centre in London. Through individual semi-structured interviews lasting between 34 and 69 minutes, the team led by Nicola Peat of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Foundation Trust explored how patients perceive and experience physical activity during immunotherapy. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis, a rigorous framework for identifying patterns across qualitative data. Four main themes emerged: the purpose of physical activity participation, the factors that help or hinder it, the striking lack of support from healthcare professionals, and the kind of support patients actually want.

The scientific rationale for the study is compelling. Physical activity is known to mitigate many cancer treatment side-effects, including fatigue and anxiety, and is associated with improved physical function and health-related quality of life across cancer populations. More intriguingly, emerging evidence suggests exercise may exert immunomodulatory effects that contribute directly to tumour control. In preclinical research, moderate-intensity exercise has been shown to reduce tumour size by mobilising highly differentiated natural killer cells and increasing the infiltration of CD8-positive T cells into tumours, the very immune mechanisms that checkpoint inhibitors are designed to enhance. This has led researchers to propose that exercise may have both a conditioning effect and a tumour immune surveillance effect, potentially amplifying the benefits of immunotherapy itself.

Current guidelines recommend that adults with cancer engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise per week, plus two resistance-training sessions. Yet physical activity levels typically decline after a cancer diagnosis, with fewer than 30 percent of individuals meeting these recommendations. The new study reveals how this gap plays out in the lives of patients on immunotherapy. Most participants described a decline in activity following diagnosis, driven by frequent hospital visits, debilitating side-effects, and a simple lack of knowledge about what was safe or beneficial. Fatigue emerged as the dominant barrier, with one participant describing having absolutely no energy, and another attributing profound exhaustion to treatment-induced pituitary and thyroid dysfunction, telling researchers they were more worn out than during their army days.

Pain also limited movement, particularly where cancer had spread to bones in the hip and leg, while nausea, vomiting, skin rash and itchiness added further obstacles. Psychological factors mattered too. One participant described falling into a dark period after diagnosis, spending most days in bed with the blanket over their head, and reflected that help to snap out of it might have changed everything. Notably, the study identified barriers unique to checkpoint inhibitor therapy: endocrine-related fatigue, nausea and skin symptoms that fluctuate across treatment cycles, creating a moving target for both patients and anyone prescribing exercise. Social support cut both ways, with some patients encouraged by family members to walk to the shops, and others told by worried relatives to cancel gym memberships and rest.

Against these barriers, participants described powerful motivations. Physical activity represented independence, normalcy and control, a way of living life on their own terms. Walking was the most common activity, woven into daily routines such as commuting, shopping and playing with grandchildren. Immunotherapy itself acted as a beacon of hope, with one patient describing the treatment as a last chance of survival and a reason to be as fit and well as possible. Participants also credited exercise with lifting mood, managing comorbidities such as pre-diabetes, and easing fatigue and pain, with one describing how supervised treadmill sessions at the cancer centre gym restored the ability to walk at a good pace and take grandchildren to the park. Several described physical activity as their therapy place, a source of routine, sanctuary and a happiness factor.

The most striking finding, however, was the silence of the clinical team. Every participant reported receiving little or no physical activity advice during routine appointments. Some recalled only vague encouragement to keep doing what they were doing, while the majority received nothing at all. When asked whether advice would have helped, all but one said yes, with one patient noting that information about exercise would totally have changed the way they felt about it. Several said that simply reading the study information sheet sparked a desire to become more active, and argued that such information should be given to patients at the start of treatment. Participants perceived that clinicians prioritised drug-based management of side-effects over conversations about movement, and physiotherapy referrals, when they occurred, focused on managing impairments rather than broader activity benefits.

What patients want, the study found, is structured, personalised and expert-led support rather than leaflets or generic exhortations. They wanted someone to show them the right exercises for their specific tumour sites and limitations, trusted professionals with knowledge of both cancer and exercise, clear targets and progress tracking, and flexible programmes that accommodate the good and bad days of treatment cycles. Walking and strength training were the most favoured activities, followed by cycling and swimming, and participants favoured hybrid models combining supervised hospital or gym sessions with home-based activity. Crucially, they endorsed a periodised, auto-regulated approach, doing less during treatment weeks and more in the weeks after, an approach consistent with research showing that chemotherapy-periodised exercise improves adherence and symptom management compared with linear progression.

The authors argue that structured physical activity is a promising but underutilised strategy for managing cancer and treatment-related side-effects during checkpoint inhibitor therapy, and that these patients have distinct needs requiring personalised support. Their recommendations include embedding professionals with cancer-specific exercise expertise, such as physiotherapists, directly into cancer clinics and care pathways, improving referral routes to rehabilitation specialists, and training healthcare professionals to close knowledge and confidence gaps. Prior research suggests only between 6 and 44 percent of cancer patients receive physical activity information during oncology appointments, and this study suggests immunotherapy patients are no exception. Given exercise’s potential to enhance both quality of life and possibly immunotherapy response, the researchers call for future studies to evaluate which checkpoint inhibitor side-effects can be mitigated through activity, and to test accessible, scalable interventions across patient groups.

The study has limitations. Recruitment came from a single UK tertiary centre with a relatively homogeneous group of bladder and renal cancer patients, all receiving checkpoint inhibitors, which may limit generalisability to broader populations or other treatments. The supportive context of the specialist unit and good transport links may also have under-represented socioeconomic and environmental barriers reported elsewhere. Nevertheless, the methodology was rigorous, reported against the COREQ checklist, with ethical approval, member-checked transcripts and reflexive analysis. For patients whose treatment is their last hope of survival, the message from this research is clear: they want to move, they believe movement helps, and the healthcare system needs to start telling them how.

Subject of Research: Patient perspectives and experiences of physical activity during immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment for advanced urological cancers

Article Title: Physical activity in advanced urological cancers undergoing immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment: a qualitative study exploring patient perspectives and experiences

Article References: Peat, N., Jones, G. D., Veal, I., Kinsella, N., Karagiannis, S. N., & Van Hemelrijck, M. (2026). Physical activity in advanced urological cancers undergoing immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment: a qualitative study exploring patient perspectives and experiences. Supportive Care in Cancer, 34(10), Article 963. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-026-11195-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s00520-026-11195-8

Keywords: physical activity, immune checkpoint inhibitors, immunotherapy, bladder cancer, renal cancer, urological cancer, qualitative research, exercise oncology, cancer rehabilitation, fatigue, supportive care, patient perspectives