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Group versus individual exercise interventions for women with breast cancer: a meta-analysis

Abstract Background. Both during and after treatment, cancer survivors experience declines in physical and psychosocial quality of life (QoL). Prior research indicates that exercise interventions alleviate problems in physical functioning and some aspects of psychological functioning. For survivors seeking social support, exercise programmes that are conducted in group settings may foster optimal QoL improvement (by addressing additional issues related to isolation and social support) over individually based exercise programmes. Methods. We reviewed literature on group cohesion in exercise studies, and conducted a meta-analysis to test the hypothesis that group as compared to individual exercise interventions for breast cancer survivors would show greater improvement in QoL. Results. As currently implemented, group exercise interventions showed no advantage. However, they typically did not provide any evidence that they capitalised upon potentially beneficial group processes. Conclusions. Future exercise intervention studies could investigate the effect on QoL of deliberately using group dynamics processes, such as team-building experiences and group goal setting to foster group cohesion.