Sampling
Where reported, the method of selecting the participants was
mostly by purposive sampling indicating the largely qualitative
methodology approaches used. However, Stellman et al.
(1984), Tamburini et al. (1986) and Janda et al. (2004) did
not record the method of sampling.
The number of women participating in each study was
small and the total number involved in all studies was less
than 400. The number of participants in each study ranged
from seven women (van de Wiel et al. 1990a, 1990b,
Willibrord et al. 1990) to 77 women (Janda et al. 2005). The
age range of the participants was between 19 years (Likes
et al. 2007) and 98 years (Green et al. 2000), with the average
age in most studies being 50–55 years.