Methodological reflections on body-mind intervention studies with cancer patients.

Objective: Methodological reflection on the content, results and limitations of three body-mind intervention studies with cancer patients (CPs) in order to improve the quality of studies on body-mind interventions and to raise the potential value for CPs.

Methods: A secondary analysis of a study on haptotherapy and two studies applying relaxing face massage, using a variety of well-being effect measures. Six methodological themes are discussed: (1) drop-out; (2) characteristics of participating patients, (3) participation of patients in other complementary interventions; (4) satisfaction of participants; (5) effects of the three interventions, and (6) role of response shift.