Table 3.

Qualitative themes of facilitators and barriers and corresponding quotations of patients and partners.

	Examples of facilitators	Examples of barriers
Physical functioning	I liked the variety of exercises and could participate in all of them. (Patient)	There was a point in the exercise where I couldn’t keep up, and that was quite confronting, because a number of physical things, simple things, I couldn’t do anymore. (Patient)
Participating in a group	It gave me a liberating feeling to see that the others all had the same problem, you’re not alone, there are other people that have cancer. (Partner)	And then you start to think, ‘is it my turn now?’, that’s a big setback. (Patient)
Participating with partner	I heard how he dealt with it during the day, and that was nice. (Partner)	I couldn’t relax because I thought, he feels completely short of breath. (Partner)