Table 5 Illustrative quotes for Theme 4 on patients’ experiences and perspectives on preoperative care in colorectal cancer and abdominal surgery

4. Mental and emotional health

“[S]omeone telling us now you are at this point, what’s next, what’s next, what our system is. What situation you’ll be treating, how good is your surgeon, how many people will be recovered from this. It gives you confidence. You feel much better. So, I hope all this is done at the very beginning.” (FG2, P5)

“Yeah, its stress…. apprehension is the wrong word. It’s just a disappointment like you feel like you’re just sitting there, and you can’t go forward because you don’t know what forward is yet.” (FG2, P1)

“[W]ith the stress that you’re under, you’re not thinking properly, you’re not eating properly” (FG3, P6)

“[I]t would have helped to release the stress so that you’re busy, focused on something else, so that you can control versus something that you couldn’t control” (FG3, P6)

“[Mental health is] not addressed here at all and you’re really left floundering” (FG1, P1)

“She spent a lot of time on mental health with me too, really talking a lot about that, which was really important” (FG1, P4)

“have that person’s contact information so you could potentially call them if you’re in a crisis or if you need to talk to someone” (FG1, P3)

“Fear.” (FG2, P1)

“and then the anger thing, right? You sort of do the balance of trying to continue working and there’s a whole lot to take and also the fear of the unknown” (FG2, P2)

“Dire messages from my doctor and surgeon, so I kind of had that in the back of my head.” (FG3, P1)

“it was the bog-standardness of my experience in the pre-admission clinic which created a huge emotional burden (FG3, P4)

“a resource, somebody you could pick up the phone and call and ask some of these questions, to put your mind kind of at ease” (FG2, P4)

“I would put on more [materials for support] except the nutrition or support, exercise, I would say well-being and helping. Spiritual well-being and helping is more important [….] if the mind calms the bad things this is really helpful” (FG2, P5)