Improving Decision Making On Location of Care With the Frail Elderly and Their Caregivers (DOLCE)
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ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02244359 |
Recruitment Status :
Completed
First Posted : September 19, 2014
Last Update Posted : August 25, 2016
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One of the toughest decisions faced by the frail elderly in Canada is whether to stay at home or move to a care facility. It is certainly difficult to make this decision alone, but can be even harder if someone else makes it for you. Shared decision making is when, instead of making decisions for the patient, healthcare professionals share information about what the evidence says, and they talk about what's important with the patient, and then make the decision together. In the case of the frail elderly in home care services, there are many health care professionals involved, e.g. the doctor, nurse and social worker. In this case decisions should be shared by all the professionals involved with the elderly person along with his or her caregivers. Unfortunately, in this context, shared decision making rarely occurs.
We have designed a training program that teaches interprofessional teams how to share decisions with their frail elderly patients, and tested it in one Quebec City and one Edmonton home care team. This project tests the training program on a broader scale with 16 home care teams attached to community health centres across the province of Quebec, and will compare the results with what happens when no one has completed the training (usual care). Home care is a rapidly growing sector and this study will lay the foundations for a national strategy to ensure that no one has to make this difficult decision alone.
Condition or disease | Intervention/treatment | Phase |
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Decision Process About the Location of Care Among Frail Elderly | Behavioral: Training Behavioral: Usual care | Not Applicable |
Study Type : | Interventional (Clinical Trial) |
Actual Enrollment : | 455 participants |
Allocation: | Randomized |
Intervention Model: | Parallel Assignment |
Masking: | Single (Participant) |
Primary Purpose: | Health Services Research |
Official Title: | Improving the Decision Making Process About Location of Care With the Frail Elderly and Their Caregivers |
Study Start Date : | September 2014 |
Actual Primary Completion Date : | August 2016 |
Actual Study Completion Date : | August 2016 |
Arm | Intervention/treatment |
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Experimental: Training
Online tutorial, decision aid and interactive workshop
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Behavioral: Training |
Usual care
Usual care
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Behavioral: Usual care |
- The assumed role in the decision making process, and the preferred and chosen options. [ Time Frame: 3 to 6 months ]We will use the modified version of the Control Preferences Scale designed to assess the assumed role in the decision making process reported by the client.

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Ages Eligible for Study: | 65 Years and older (Older Adult) |
Sexes Eligible for Study: | All |
Accepts Healthy Volunteers: | No |
Inclusion Criteria:
- Receiving care from the home care team
- Faced the decision about whether to stay at home or move to a care facility in the previous 3 to 6 months
- Able to read, understand and write french or english
- Able to give informed consent
- For the case of clients unable to provide informed consent, their caregivers who was involved into decision making process will be eligible
Exclusion Criteria:
- Clients who cannot provide informed consent (e. g. clients with cognitive impairment) without a caregiver
- Clients who require acute care hospitalization and whom the location of care decision is transferred to hospital-based social services

To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT02244359
Canada | |
CHU de Québec | |
Quebec, Canada, G1L 3L5 |
Principal Investigator: | France Légaré, MD, PhD | CHUQ Research Center |
Responsible Party: | France Legare, B. Sc. Arch, MD, PhD, CCMF, FCMF, CHU de Quebec-Universite Laval |
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: | NCT02244359 |
Other Study ID Numbers: |
CORE 2013-56 |
First Posted: | September 19, 2014 Key Record Dates |
Last Update Posted: | August 25, 2016 |
Last Verified: | August 2016 |
Shared Decision making Patient Centred care Interprofessionalism Home care Frail elderly |