Theme 1. The message language is accessible to everyone

“All those messages can apply to everybody” (Female, age 60, ID11)

“I found the information received was very informative and easy to understand” (Female, age 64, ID99)

“I, most of the time, followed the links that you provided. Read the information which I think is very clear, very straightforward, very understandable by the general population” (Female, age 66, ID13)

Theme 2. The lifestyle change (diet, exercise, mental health, medication adherence) was useful

“My initial reaction is that I didn’t do anything different because of these messages. But actually when I think about it, now I am nearly vegetarian, I don’t drink [alcohol] very much, I’m very conscious of not eating too many cured meats. So even though maybe it didn’t have an immediate impact, it had a long-term impact on the way that I think about the things that I can do to make sure it [cancer] doesn’t come back” (Female, age 37, ID40)

“It motivated me to walk a bit more. I started walking, just 10 min, 20 min. Doing little exercises. Now I am making time for what I eat. How was like nutrition, food and going for a walk. At least those simple things I have started doing” (Female, age 57, ID71)

“I found like, I’ve had a bad day for whatever reason, and the message came through and they’re just like ‘remember that exercise is important, but every little bit counts’ so you know, ‘did you climb those stairs or did you just go around the block?’ and I’m just like, well, yep, I manage that! So, I wasn’t completely negative in my own self, so then [I’d] have that positive comeback” (Female, age 47, ID152)

“Every message sent was useful as I was informed of new ways of dealing with things like moods due to hormone medication and all other new things that you have to deal with after breast cancer” (Female, age 41, ID89)

Theme 3. The importance of message variety and practical advice

“There was a fair bit of time, maybe several weeks, between similar [topics] So there’s a certain cycle in it and a certain reinforcement and slightly different slants from the same topics, it maybe took you to a different website etc.. So I think that was quite good really” (Female, age 66, ID13)

“I thought there was a good mix of tips & ideas” (Female, age 67, ID114)

“I think it was a good package, as well as the links you know how to improve our general health, about self-care and about those simple messages, and also there’s quite a few messages regarding reminding you it’s important to take your anti-hormone tablet, why do you need to do and there’s a couple of messages on how to deal with hot flushes as part of the medication, side effects of medication and all that. So it’s just a whole package of everything reminding you of everything that all this can help with your symptoms” (Female, age 60, ID11)

“being on tamoxifen sometimes […] you just don’t wanna get up, don’t want to exercise, all I do was sleeping and I’ve got at that time the [message] about exercising. I was finding exercising [a] bit of a chore and you sent out one [message] saying to ‘do it in intervals’… ‘do it 10 min in the morning, 10 min…” and I started doing that and found that really good. So it was empowering me to actually do stuff” (Female, age 41, ID89)

Theme 4. The impact of positively toned and self-care messages

“I remember there’s one day I felt really down and I got this simple message that said ‘You are important and you are beautiful – have a great day!’ And that just put me to tears. I was just like ‘Okay, I’m not alone in this’ and my day, I felt better” (Female, age 60, ID11)

“Because I have quite a stressful job, it actually did make me say ‘yes, you’re running out of work 7 1/2 h…why? You know why. You’re recovering.’ So, I did work less hours and took some time for myself because it was a good reminder, some of those messages” (Female, age 52, ID14)

“I like the messages because I learn how to take care of myself” (Female, age 67, ID2)

“The messaging was good for me because I liked it was quite positive and uplifting” (Female, age 56, ID107)

“I thought they were extremely positive. They’ve been very well. I thought they were very informative. I love them and I didn’t think that there, was enough of them” (Female, age 48, ID108)

“On days when you thought you were the only one going through this, those messages were quite uplifting and sort of give you a bigger perspective on things, so it was good, positive, light” (Female, age 56, ID107)

“I found when treatment finished it was like ‘well that’s done, now go back to normal…. but what exactly is normal now?’ It was amazing how many of my text messages would chime through and the topic would be exactly what I needed to read, particularly when I was having a bad day physically or emotionally” (Female, age 47, ID152)

“I found the ones that were a bit more positive more useful” (Female, age 37, ID40)

“I found some of the messages were freakishly scary in that if I was having a bad day, the message topic was about my bad day and how it’s all normal, it’s all good. Like it’s almost like it was that 6th sense coming in: “Hey, you are doing alright. You are doing the right thing. Keep going” (Female, age 47, ID152)

“I found it very positive and it did remind you to take time out for yourself” (Female, age 48, ID53)