the intervention group received standard care plus they were also offered two consultations at a specialist surgical nurse-led clinic

The control group received standard care.

Consultations at a specialist surgical nurse-led clinic

A generic instrument (40 items), that measures health effects after education.

The instrument consists of eight scales that measure different perceived health-related aspects:

1. health directed activities, 2. positive and active engagement in life, 3. emotional distress, 4. self-monitoring and insight, 5. Constructive attitudes and approaches, 6. skills and technique acquisition, 7. social integration and support, and 8. health service navigation.

The response options for each item are scored 1-4: "strongly disagree," "disagree," "agree" and "strongly agree."

The HeiQ-scales are scored by summarizing within scale item scores, followed by dividing the sum with the number of scale items. A higher number represents better outcomes in all scales except for the emotional distress scale, where a higher score represents worse outcome.

Questionnaire consisting of four items designed to asses aspects of sexual function, as well as perception of overall sexual quality of life.

The four items include interest in sex, achieving orgasm, quality of erection, and achieving ejaculation. Each item is scored on a six-point Likert scale ranging from 0 to 5. The raw scores are linearly transformed to a global sex life index ranging from 0 to 100, where a lower score indicates better preserved sexual function.

For female participants, four specific items related to female sexual function were used, based on MSF-4 and derived from a previous study that investigated female patients undergoing colorectal surgery; first two items were interest in sex and achieving orgasm and both used a six-point Likert scale ranging from 0 to 5 where a lower score indicates better outcome. The second two items were problems with insufficient vaginal moisture and changes in the vaginal sense postoperatively, both items used binary yes/no answers.

standardized instrument designed to measure health outcomes that also has been commonly utilized in health economic analysis.

An overall classification of perceived health is measured with a visual analog scale where 0 represents the worst possible imaginable health and 100 represents the best possible imaginable health. Health is further classified in five different dimensions: 1. mobility, 2. self-care, 3. daily activities, 4. pain/discomfort, and 5. depression/anxiety. These dimensions can be graded differently depending on what iteration of the instrument is being used. The present study used the three-scale step level version (EQ-5D-3L), with the alternatives "no problems," "some/moderate problems," and "extreme problems" for each dimension.