DISCUSSION
anxiety, fatigue, cancer, 6‐week, pain, depression
CANCER, DISEASE, RECURRENCE
To summarise, BC and its treatment pose many challenges to the patient's physical, emotional, mental and social well‐being and negatively impact the patient's QoL. Furthermore, HRQoL and its domains are important measures for cancer survivorship as they provide prognosticAn interdisciplinary treatment that included coordinated psychological and physiotherapeutic interventions improved HRQoL, anxiety and depression among BCS 6 weeks and 3 months after the interdisciplinary treatment, when compared to the usual treatment for such patients. To our knowledge, this is the first trial conducted in a group setting in a hospital environment in the Basque Country that assesses the efficacy of an interdisciplinary treatment for BCS. This study investigated changes in HRQoL, anxiety and depression after a 6‐week interdisciplinary intervention in 60 BCSs. Additionally, the baseline scores of HRQoL, depression and social functioning and the study group were significant variables related to improvement of HRQoL.Even following the completion of treatment for BC, survivors regularly suffer severe psychological stress, anxiety, depression, fear of recurrence, physical pain, fatigue and reduced QoL.Our results are consistent with those of previous studies,Although all patients in our study had early BC, the emotional response to BC is not dependent on the stage of the disease, given that women who have been diagnosed with non‐invasive BCs also experience powerful emotions.Three months after completion of the interdisciplinary intervention, patients continued to show statistically significant improvements in With regard to When interpreting the results in terms of ES, the ES for HRQoL, anxiety and depression were large (With regard to variables It is important to stress that the EG patients in our study reported being Our findings support the preliminary evidence that interdisciplinary treatment can be significantly efficacious in alleviating anxiety and depression and improving HRQoL in women survivors of BC. Moreover, the ES is large. Our purpose was to furnish patients with the skills that would assist their long‐term adaptation to BC and improve their HRQoL.One limitation of this research is that only a small number of BCSs were included. Because the women were not allocated randomly to the program, it is difficult to draw conclusions drawn from the results of the study. Although a good balance between the groups was maintained with regard to disease, treatment and demographic variables, patients with anxiety (66%) were more likely to accept an interdisciplinary intervention; that is, there is a group of patients who have been diagnosed and treated for BC, who have shown elevated levels of symptomatology of anxiety and depression within 2 years (approximately) of their cancer diagnosis, which prevents a valid comparison between the two groups. Although this study was not undertaken as RCT, which is a very substantial limitation, the significant ESs that we observe in the EG are exciting and the intervention does warrant further study in a randomised controlled trial. A limitation of our study was that there was no included the molecular subtypes of BC. Another limitation is that the lack of standard interdisciplinary treatments for BCSs and standard study designs hinders comparison between our study and others. Another limitation is that the majority of the sample (72%) were stage 0 and 1. A limitation is that there was no assessment of satisfaction in the standard care group. Another limitation was that few patients received anti HER2 treatment in the EG. Finally, future longitudinal research in a large sample is needed for BCSs and to observe ways in which the interdisciplinary treatment can be applied clinically.