An interventional study of Volunteer mealtime assistance in Volunteer Mealtime Assistants, sponsored by University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. Completed at 1 site in United Kingdom. Open to participants aged 70 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2016-10-13.
Sponsored by University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research
The Southampton Mealtime Assistance Study aims to determine whether it is feasible and acceptable to introduce trained volunteers as mealtime assistants in five different departments of one large hospital.
University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust is the lead sponsor of 147 studies on the registry; 36 are open to participants now.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Trained volunteers will provide mealtime assistance to older hospital inpatients at one mealtime each weekday.
Behavioral: Volunteer mealtime assistance
Feasibility and acceptability of volunteer mealtime assistants in different hospital departments
Is it feasible to recruit and sustain sufficient volunteers to provide mealtime assistance across a large hospital trust? Are these volunteers acceptable to patients, relatives, and staff? This will be determined by recording the number of volunteers recruited, trained and assessed and by recording their activity, in numbers of mealtimes assisted per week and duration of volunteering. If a volunteer discontinues their role, the reasons will be identified for this. Acceptability will be assessed through qualitative methods- interviews with patients and relatives and focus groups with nursing staff and volunteers.
Time frame: 16 months
Changes in food choice and dietary intake before and after the introduction of volunteer mealtime assistants
The food choices and dietary intake of patients on the wards under study will be determined twice prior to the introduction of the volunteers and twice after their introduction. This will take place at the mealtime where the volunteers are assisting. The weight of meals served is portion controlled by the hospital caterers to within 10% of the stated weight. Therefore, using these stated weights and by measuring the leftover weight of food, we will calculate each patient's dietary intake at that mealtime.
Time frame: 16 months
Costs to the hospital trust associated with implementing a volunteer mealtime assistance programme
Staff costs in terms of time spent training and supporting volunteers will be recorded, as will any consumables required for the study. The costs will be totalled to provide an overall cost estimate of implementing a volunteer mealtime assistance programme.
Time frame: 16 months
This study is completed, as verified in Oct 2016. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust