15 patients were randomly allocated in each arm of the study,
by a computer generated program (Fig. 1). All 15 patients in
the control group completed the study. 3 patients withdrew
from the intervention group due to personal reasons (two
patients had bereavement in the family; and one patient had
a new diagnosis of terminal disease). 2 patientswithdrew after
week 1 and 1 patient withdrew at week 3. Baseline characteristics
of the study population is summarized in Table