were excluded. We oversampled our eligible patient
population for group-size and drop-out rate
reasons, and increased the number of members to
12 to 15 per group. A total of 90 patients were
expected, and after matching them on the basis of
gender, they were placed into either experimental
or comparison groups. Ten patients in the experimental
group were unable to attend all group sessions
because of their diseases or therapies and
dropped out of the investigation; the drop-out rate
was 22.2%. Two in the comparison group were not
surveyed more than twice, and so, their data were
excluded from analysis; the drop-out rate was 4%.
The total number of investigative subjects was 78,
with 35 in the experimental group and 43 in the
comparison group.