Table 1 Interview guide to explore the experiences of CBT-AP among patients with breast cancer

1.

What was your experience with the therapeutic approaches (telephone and face-to-face)? Probe: Acceptability, suitability, effectiveness, appropriateness to the content, personalisation of the intervention, and your experience with other patients in the group therapy.

2.

How did you find the content of the intervention for both telephone and face-to-face sessions? Probe: Introductory session about breast cancer, its symptoms and treatment, main content (CBT, AP, sleep disturbance management, dysfunctional thought management), and the closing session (goal setting and action plan).

3.

Can you describe your experience with the intervention manual and worksheet? Probe: Understandability, clarity, and applicability. Prompt: How easy or difficult was it to work through or implement? What difficulties did you encounter?

4.

How did you find the context of the intervention? Probe: Setting, timing, regularity/weekly schedule, length of each session, and the total number of sessions.

5.

How did you find the therapists during the face-to-face and telephone sessions? Probe: Attention, compassion, respect, caring, sympathy, timing, language, competence, and problem-solving ability.

6.

Describe the effect of CBT-AP on your life: physically (e.g., symptoms such as fatigue, pain, insomnia), psychologically (e.g., thoughts, emotions, behaviour), and socially (e.g., interaction with family, friends, community, social support).

7.

What barriers and facilitators did you experience when participating in CBT-AP? Probe: Content, context, approach, therapist.

8.

What suggestions do you have for improving CBT-AP? Probe: Content of the intervention, intervention module, worksheet, therapeutic approaches (telephone and face-to-face modes), and context of the intervention (setting, timing/weekly schedule, regularity, length of each session, total number of sessions), therapist (attention, compassion, respect, caring, sympathy, timing, language, competence, problem-solving ability).

9.

How have you incorporated CBT-AP into your day-to-day life after completing the therapy sessions? Probe: Intervention manual, worksheet.