Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
1994). Each time the data was revisited I was looking for themes
and interconnections that recurred between the units and categories
that were emerging. By doing this two main themes were developed
which incorporated all the categories identified.
Sample and selection
The target recruitment sample for this study was seventy six. Eighty
nine patients fulfilled the eligibility criteria and were approached
during the data collection period to take part, but eighteen patients
refused to participate mainly due to other commitments to drug
trials in the unit. Therefore, only seventy one patients were
recruited into this study between September 2003 and November
2004 (Table 3). This included sixty three females and eight males;
36 were in the control group (50.7%) and 35 in the intervention
group (49.3%). The demographic characteristics of the sample are
presented in Table 3 below. There are approximately 1000 patients
diagnosed with cancer each year in the district hospital where this
study was conducted, of which breast and colorectal cancers
represent approximately fifty percent.
Table 3 - Number of patients recruited into the study:
Patients Male Female Totals
Colorectal
cancer
8 16 24
Breast cancer 0 47 47
Totals 8 63 71
The number of females recruited into this study was 63 in total 34
(53.9%) in the control group and 29 (49.3%) in the intervention
group compared with 8 males (11.3 %), 47 of the females had a
breast cancer diagnosis 24 (51%) in the control group and 23
(48.9%) in the intervention group whereas 16 had colorectal
cancer. All male patients had a colorectal cancer diagnosis. The
mean age was 58.2 years for the control group and 59.4 years for
the intervention group. Although 71 patients were recruited into this
study, only 65 completed it. This included 31 in the intervention
group and 34 in the control group. Six female patients did not
complete the required documentation following the first cycle. Four
of them were from the control group and two were from the
intervention group (see figure 1: Flow of patients through the
study). There were no extreme scores in the data from these six
patients.
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