Setting & Sample

Setting

The setting of the proposed research will be in the Health Sciences North (HSN) catchment area for the cardiac rehabilitation program. This area extends from Parry Sound, north to Wawa and Hearst, and east to Mattawa (O’Donnell, 2013). Data will be collected from the hospital sites where the CR programs are conducted within this catchment area. As there are many barriers to CR one of which being location of CR programs, and ability to travel there, this catchment covers a wide array of both urban and rural communities, which will help to remove those barriers (Johnson, Inder, & Bowe, 2010).
Data will be collected on site, at each location from trained staff.

Sample

The intended sample for this research is women within the HSN catchment, who have experienced a cardiac event, and are indicated for CR. The women must be medically cleared by their doctors, and be willing to attend a CR program. As this research is specifically looking at women with CVD, the sampling technique used will be convenience sampling (LoBiondo-Wood, & Haber, 2013). Convenience sampling is a logical choice for this study as it is looking specifically at the outcomes post CR intervention for women with CVD (LoBiondo-Wood, & Haber, 2013). This is a time effective sampling technique, as the initial inclusion data for these women is collected in hospital (LoBiondo-Wood, & Haber, 2013).
The women will be consulted prior to discharge by their doctor about CR programs, and the information about the research can be provided along with other educational materials upon discharge. The research information provided will include the purpose of the study, and contact details of researchers. Once initial contact is made the women will be provided with an in-depth explanation, confidentiality assurance, and ensure that the women know the study is completely voluntary at all times, at this time consent will be obtained.

Sample Size

Sample size for this research is determined by a power analysis based on previous research. General CR programs are believed to have a 26% reduction in mortality rates (Midence, et al., 2016). The power analysis was done to ensure that even the smallest of changes were detected, alpha was set at 0.5 and power at 0.8, and the sample size determined was 1004 participants, 502 per group (Kane, 2017). This is a feasible sample size due to the population of the HSN catchment area. In addition, this sample size is larger than other sample sizes in CR research. These studies have cited small sample sizes as limitations to their research (Beckstead et al., 2013; Dunlay, et al., 2009; Sanderson, Shewchuk, & Bittner, 2010). Inclusion criteria for this study are female gender, diagnosis indicating CR for treatment, residing in the catchment area, ability to travel to hospital to attend, and medical clearance. Exclusion criteria is inability to travel to hospital, and being medically unstable.