Contemporary clinical trials
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Contemp Clin Trials · Sep 2007
Patient recruitment into a randomised controlled trial of supervised exercise therapy in sedentary women treated for breast cancer.
The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of different recruitment strategies used to recruit patients into the Sheffield Exercise and Breast Cancer Trial (SHERBERT), which involved exercise as a therapy, in sedentary women treated for breast cancer. We also evaluated whether the routes of recruitment distinguished patients participating in the trial in terms of socio-economic characteristics, lifestyle behaviours, cancer treatment(s), treatment side effects, length of treatment and time since treatment was completed. ⋯ The number of patients randomised was marginally lower than anticipated. We were able to identify and highlight valuable information for planning the recruitment of future trials involving similar populations.