Evaluation of an Intervention Designed to Enhance the Quality of Decision Support Provided to Patients Making Decisions About End-of-life Place of Care - Full Text View

Sponsor:	Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Information provided by:	Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:	NCT00614003

Purpose

Most dying cancer patients would prefer a home death yet die in an institution. Patients can experience uncertainty when weighing practical considerations, concern for others, and their personal ratings about the desirability and undesirability of various outcomes related to different locations of care. Health professionals, trained in decision support, can help patients to make decisions that are informed by both relevant information and what outcomes are most valued by patients. Therefore, I will study if an educational intervention can help nurses and case managers to strengthen their skills and confidence in providing patient decision support around place of end of life care.

Project Description (What am I going to do?) Using a two step approach I will study if the quality of providers decision support can be improved with an education. In step one nurses and care coordinators will be interviewed to identify factors that make it easier or more difficult to provide patient decision support. This information will be used to develop an education program. In step two, nurses and care coordinator volunteers will be assigned by a flip of a coin to either receive the decision support education or not. Before and after the education program the quality of the decision support participants provide will be measured and compared. As well, participants receiving the education program will be asked about their satisfaction with the education program.

Condition	Intervention	Phase
Palliative Care	Behavioral: Decision support skills building Intervention	Phase II

Study Type:	Interventional
Study Design:	Allocation: Randomized Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment Masking: Single Blind (Subject)
Official Title:	Efficacy of a Training Intervention on the Quality of Case Coordinators and Nurses' Decision Support for Patients Deciding About the Place of Care at the End Of-Life: A Randomized Control Trial

Resource links provided by NLM:

MedlinePlus related topics: Palliative Care

U.S. FDA Resources

Further study details as provided by Ottawa Hospital Research Institute:

Primary Outcome Measures:

Decision support quality audit using simulated patients measured by the validated and reliable Decision Support Analysis Tool [ Time Frame: 6 month ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]

Secondary Outcome Measures:

Knowledge of place of care determinants and decision support concepts; self perceived quality of decision support provision in clinical practice and behavior intention survey; acceptability and utility of intervention components [ Time Frame: 6 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]

Estimated Enrollment:	90
Study Start Date:	April 2007
Study Completion Date:	June 2008
Primary Completion Date:	June 2008 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)

Arms	Assigned Interventions
Experimental: 1 decision support	Behavioral: Decision support skills building Intervention Decision support skills

Detailed Description:

Most terminal cancer patients prefer home palliation yet die in an institution. Some experience decisional conflict when weighing options regarding place of care. Community Case Managers and Nurses are well positioned to identify decisional needs and provide decision support; however, they generally lack skills and confidence in doing so. This study aims to determine whether the quality of case managers and nurses' decision support can be improved with a theory-based skills-building intervention.

In phase one a needs assessment will be conducted with about 20 key informants. In phase two, nurses will be randomly allocated to an intervention or control group. The intervention, informed by the needs assessment, is comprised of: an auto-tutorial; an interactive skills building workshop; a decision support protocol; performance feedback, and educational outreach.

Participants will be assessed: a) at baseline (quality of decision support); b) after the auto-tutorial (knowledge); and six to eight weeks after the other interventions (quality of decision support; confidence and intention to integrate decision support into practice). Between group differences in the primary outcome (quality of decision support scores) will be analyzed using a repeated measures ANOVA.

Eligibility

Genders Eligible for Study:	Both
Accepts Healthy Volunteers:	Yes

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

Nurses and case coordinators who:

are members of a regulated health profession
care for palliative cancer patients, and/or
cancer patients with advanced disease, and
work at least 4 shifts per month,
in a clinical area where end of life care discussions are likely to be undertaken, and
are proficient in written and spoken English.

Contacts and Locations

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00614003

Locations

Canada, Ontario
St. Elizabeths Health Care Agency
,Kingston, Ontario, Canada
The Ottawa Hospital
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Ottawa Carefor Nursing Services
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
SCOHS Regional Palliative Care Community Services
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Community Care Access Center's (CCAC)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sponsors and Collaborators

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Investigators

Principal Investigator:

Annette O'Connor, MD

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

More Information

No publications provided

Responsible Party:	Annette O'Connor, OHRI
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:	NCT00614003 History of Changes
Other Study ID Numbers:	H-01-07-09
Study First Received:	January 18, 2008
Last Updated:	August 20, 2010
Health Authority:	Canada: Health Canada

Keywords provided by Ottawa Hospital Research Institute:

decisional conflict;
decision quality;
place of end of life care;
provider education

ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on February 09, 2012