Surviving to thriving: Empowering breast cancer survivors through community-based health coaching

Background: Breast cancer survival rates are improving, yet the collateral damage of successful treatment is often overlooked. Over 4 million survivors are left in silence asking “now what?”- many facing ongoing struggles with their physical abilities, emotional well-being, quality of life, and adverse health outcomes that often go unaddressed in a traditional survivorship care plan. Objective: LYTE (Living Your Truth Empowered) Foundation with Claremont Graduate University piloted a novel approach to address this gap: a personalized health coaching program designed to empower survivors to reclaim their health, rebuild their confidence, improve their quality of life, and thrive, not just survive. Methods: This one-arm quasi-experimental pilot study was designed to evaluate the program's feasibility and effectiveness on the quality of life, physical health, and well-being of breast cancer survivors. Female, adult breast cancer survivors (N=9) completed a 9-week health coaching program consisting of weekly, live virtual coaching sessions. Participants completed pre and post in-person assessments (body composition, metabolic health, and physical ability) and online surveys (physical activity/function, nutrition, quality of life and self-confidence). Results: The coaching program demonstrated strong feasibility, with all 9 participants completing the intervention and high approval of Zoom utilization (89% participants reported ‘very much' easy to use). Post-intervention, participants reported improvements in functional physical activity and reduced difficulty of everyday tasks, including climbing stairs, walking and shopping. Participants engaged in more frequent and longer sessions of vigorous and moderate physical activity, accompanied by an increase in self-reported walking pace. Psychological and environmental barriers to physical activity improved, and confidence in daily movement and physical activity increased. A few challenges (time constraints and financial limitations) persisted or slightly increased. In-person assessment data supported self-reported survey data. Participants showed gains in right-hand grip strength and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels and decreases in weight, BMI, and blood pressure. There was also a statistically significant increase in the participants post-intervention walking distance (p=0.0005). Conclusion: LYTE's health coaching program offers an innovative, survivor-centered approach to improving quality of life, physical health, and well-being. The findings from this pilot study demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of a health coaching program and lays the groundwork for a larger, randomized control trial. Most importantly, the study highlights the potential of personalized health coaching to help breast cancer survivors illuminate their brightest path forward.