Grad student/breast cancer survivor needing suggestions

sebert

Hi all. I'm 50 years old and a graduate student in Medical Psychology. A second career after nearly 20 years of teaching 5th graders in Michigan. Breast cancer has changed my life in a lot of ways. I was diagnosed nearly 14 years ago...July of 1990...just before my 37th birthday. I was sure that I was going to die before I saw my daughter graduate from high school. She was married this past summer at the age of 27 and I'm still kicking...actually, tearing up the turf in a graduate program 1000 miles away from home and family.

I need some suggestions on ways that I might recruit breast cancer survivors into my dissertation research project. I've placed flyers and postcards at Hematology/Oncology at Kirklin Clinic here in Birmingham and have also branched out to include internal medicine and primary care clinics operated through the University of Alabama at Birmingham...all approved through our Institutional Review Board. I need 80 women who are at least 2 years post diagnosis and I only have 8. This has been the grand total since I began recruitment in the middle of October. As you can see, I'm not going to be getting done anytime soon and I'm slated for my internship year beginning as early as July. Yikes!

I'm studying breast cancer survivors and their salivary cortisol under emotional stress...after watching a cancer-related video. They have to be women who live nearby...or are at least willing to drive to the University of Alabama at Birmingham for a couple of hours before noon on a single visit (weekday). Since the HIPAA stuff has gone into use, grad students like myself are having a great deal of difficulty getting the folks we need recruited into our studies. I think studying the emotional stress level that lingers in breast cancer survivors, related to fear of recurrence, etc., is important and that's why I'm doing the study I'm doing.

If any of you have any ideas that might help me to recruit more women, please respond to this message. I'm not trying to recruit YOU here, just looking for other suggestions that I might approach the IRB with and ask for approval. Thanks in advance,
Sheri

mricep

Hi Sheri..

I am a 19+ year breast cancer survivor involved in a group that offers emotional support through a visitation program called "Reach to Recovery". We are a part of the American Cancer Society.

If you contact the local ACS office there, you might be able to contact someone associated with that group that can get you in touch with other survivors.

Hope this information is helpful.

Good luck with your study.
Mary

sebert

mricep said:

Hi Sheri..

I am a 19+ year breast cancer survivor involved in a group that offers emotional support through a visitation program called "Reach to Recovery". We are a part of the American Cancer Society.

If you contact the local ACS office there, you might be able to contact someone associated with that group that can get you in touch with other survivors.

Hope this information is helpful.

Good luck with your study.
Mary

Great idea! I guess I was thinking that Reach to Recovery folks would be too newly diagnosed. I didn't think about the volunteers! Thanks so much.

MsKaren

Hi Sebert, Well, I'm going on 24 years of breast cancer history. Guess I can't travel to your area, but I was wondering why you couldn't contact some of the women here and do research by e-mail. Are there tests or exams you have to do in person only? Is it too risky to get your info from those on the internet because there may be dishonesty or fraud involved?

Snookums

Well, howdy neighbor- sort of. i am a Birmingham native born and raised for 22 years. My whole family is still there and I am at least 4 times a year. I can ask my sister who is head of Shelby county speech services to ask around for you and my Mom is a retired nurse. My other sister may know some people as well so I will give you my email in a personal message to you. Perhaps a retired school teacher like myself and now a banker can pull some more names into your study. C

sebert

MsKaren said:

Hi Sebert, Well, I'm going on 24 years of breast cancer history. Guess I can't travel to your area, but I was wondering why you couldn't contact some of the women here and do research by e-mail. Are there tests or exams you have to do in person only? Is it too risky to get your info from those on the internet because there may be dishonesty or fraud involved?

I'd love to do that but...I have to get saliva samples from the participants and they have to view a 27 minute video on the cancer experience. Kind of have to be here to do that. Another time, though, I plan to do some research using the internet as a tool. Just not this time. Thanks for the great idea, though. Keep thinking;-)