Introduction:

strategies to improve diet and physical activity (PA) in intervention studies among breast cancer (BC) survivors can increase adherence to healthy lifestyles and improve some psychological variables such a quality of life, sleep quality, and anxiety.

Objective:

to analyze studies about interventions on diet, PA and psychological variables in BC survivors; to evaluate the obtained results, and determine the methodology and strategy used.

Methodology:

the search was conducted from March 2016 to December 2017 in PubMed and Google Schoolar Metasearch. We reviewed the existing literature from 2006 to 2017 about lifestyle interventions in breast cancer survivors and their effect on psychological variables. Free-access publications in English and Spanish were included, and abstracts of congresses, restricted access or study protocols were excluded. For the identification of the articles, the following keywords or their combination were used: diet and breast cancer, physical activity and breast cancer, anxiety, depression, quality of life, psychological variables. From the selected articles, a qualitative analysis was carried out considering the methodology used, the strategy under which the changes were promoted, and achievements at the end of the program.

Results:

sixteen intervention studies were identified, and 100% of them obtained positive results. The practice of physical activity improved quality of life and decreased fatigue, anxiety and depression. The interventions that used healthy changes based on diet reported that survivors improved their quality of life and sleep quality, and decreased fatigue and depressive symptoms.

Conclusion:

there are few interventions aimed at improving diet and PA that consider psychological variables in BC survivors; although all have obtained positive results, it is not known whether these results are maintained in the long term.

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