An interventional study of Family educational intervention in Delirium, sponsored by London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute and Lawson Research Institute of St. Joseph's. Completed at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 70 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2015-12-24.
Sponsored by London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute and Lawson Research Institute of St. Joseph's · Not applicable, Interventional, and Prevention
To address the feasibility of implementing a randomized, educational intervention to prevent delirium, directed at family members of hospitalized older (70 years of age or older) medical in-patients. Specifically rates of recruitment and acceptance rates of such an intervention to family members will be assessed. An estimate of the effect size of this intervention will also be calculated. This is a pilot study. The investigators hypothesize that this intervention will be feasible and agreeable to family members to perform, with acceptance rates exceeding 80%.
In a recent study in Chile, investigators randomized family members of admitted patients to an educational intervention to prevent delirium. Family members actively participated in a non-pharmacological intervention to prevent delirium. This has not been done in a North American environment, with different cultural and climactic factors.
This study will be a randomized controlled trial (pilot study) involving family members. Family members will be randomized to a control group or an educational intervention. The control group will receive a general brochure, outlining general health information published by the Ministry of Health. The intervention group will receive a specific brochure on details around delirium (what it is and how to prevent it), and then a brief educational session comprising a didactic session and to address any questions. This pilot study will examine the feasibility of doing this kind of intervention in a North American environment. The family-based intervention is similar to what was done in the Chilean study. It involves six elements including the educational session. The five other elements include: 1) family being present for extended periods (at least 5 hours if possible); 2) engaging in conversation with study patients for re-orientation to current time and current events; 3) avoiding sensory deprivation (ensuring hearing or visual aids and dentures are available as needed; 4) providing familiar objects to patients; 5) provision of a clock and calendar to the patient. The intervention brochure is similar to what was provided to family members as part of the original Chilean study (kindly provided to the principal investigator, M. Dasgupta, by the lead author of the Chilean study, Dr. F.T. Martinez).
1,057 studies on the registry are indexed under Delirium; 238 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 79 is below the median of 120 across 599 interventional studies indexed under Delirium.
Browse Delirium studies →London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute and Lawson Research Institute of St. Joseph's is the lead sponsor of 352 studies on the registry; 2 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
A family educational, non-pharmacologic intervention will be administered to educate family members on how to prevent delirium. Family members will be encouraged to actively participate in this non-pharmacologic intervention.
Behavioral: Family educational intervention
The placebo group will be given a brochure on good health habits
Behavioral: Family educational intervention
The intervention is an educational intervention directed towards delirium prevention specifically for family members of hospitalized seniors. Family members will be encouraged to perform specific interventions that may decrease incident delirium.
acceptance rate of intervention
This is a feasibility study aiming to assess the acceptance of an intervention directed at family members. The acceptance rate will therefore be the primary outcome.
Time frame: 14 weeks
Rate of incident delirium in each of the 2 groups
The rate of incident delirium in each of the 2 (control or intervention) groups will be examined in order to calculate the sample size for a future similar intervention study.
Time frame: 14 weeks
Difficulties in performing the intervention
Family members will be surveyed as to what may have been particular difficulties in the intervention to perform. This may help to re-design the intervention for future studies.
Time frame: 14 weeks
This study is completed, as verified in Dec 2015. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute and Lawson Research Institute of St. Joseph's