mentally and psychologically unfit to participate in the study (e.g., those who were actively disturbed by mental health issues; those who were too emotionally unstable to discuss post-death/funeral issues) were excluded due to ethical concerns. Eligible participants in the comparison group were bereaved persons who did not receive the Bewith service or other similar funeral support services while handling funeral arrangements and postdeath matters. Specifically, inclusion criteria of the comparison group were: (a) being the key family member or friend who handled the funeral of the deceased, (b) having experienced the death of a family member or a friend 3 to 30 months ago, (c) being able to read Chinese (for those who completed the questionnaire by themselves) or to communicate in Cantonese (for those who completed the questionnaire through being interviewed by a research assistant), and (d) having finished the entire funeral process. The exclusion criterion included service recipients of other funeral support services similar to the Be-with service.
2.1.3 Sampling and procedures According to the research objectives and design, t-test analysis was used. As shown in Figure 1, by using t-test analysis, rounding up to two decimal places, we see that a sample size of 64 is required to detect an effect of 0.50 with the power of 0.80. Hence, we proposed this sample size for the intervention and comparison groups respectively.
Figure 1. Sample size justification
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