ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT03287895iCANACPUpdated Dec 26, 2018

Improving Decisions About CPR

An interventional study of Decision Support in CPR Decision-Making, sponsored by Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Completed at 2 sites in Canada. Open to participants aged 55 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2018-12-26.

Sponsored by Ottawa Hospital Research Institute · Not applicable, Interventional, and Supportive care

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
200
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
55 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Objective

The primary objective is to evaluate the efficacy of a multi-faceted, clinical decision support intervention aimed at improving the quality of decisions about Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) for seriously ill, elderly patients in hospital.

The hypothesis is that fewer patients in the intervention group will have a documented order for CPR and they will have greater satisfaction with decision making about CPR than patients in the control group.

Read the detailed description

Methodological Approach

The study will be a randomized controlled trial comparing a multi-faceted decision support intervention to usual care for hospitalized patients. The primary objective of this study is to determine if our multifaceted intervention changes decisions about CPR. The components of the multifaceted intervention have already been evaluated for feasibility and acceptability in the hospital setting. The intervention has two parts: the first is a values clarification exercise, and the second part is a CPR video decision aid that explains the risks and benefits of CPR as well as the reasons a patient may choose to receive CPR or not. From previous research it is known that many hospitalized patients have prescribed orders for CPR despite expressing a preference not to have CPR when asked. Furthermore patients often have expressed values that are not concordant with their expressed wishes regarding resuscitation. Therefore it is hypothesized that fewer patients in the intervention group will have a documented order for CPR and they will have greater satisfaction with decision making about CPR than patients in the control group.

We will conduct sensitivity analyses to investigate whether the intervention is more effective among patients who remain in hospital longer after enrollment. We will measure the intervention effect among patients who remained in hospital for fewer than three days after enrollment, among patients who were in hospital for 3-7 days after enrollment, and among patients who remained in hospital for longer than 7 days post-enrollment.

02

Conditions studied

  • CPR Decision-Making

Keywords

  • Cardio-pulmonary resuscitation
  • CPR
  • Decision-making
  • Advance Care Planning
  • End of life
  • Code Status
  • Goals of Care
  • Communication
03

In context

Death

456 studies on the registry are indexed under Death; 86 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 200 is above the median of 163 across 210 interventional studies indexed under Death.

Browse Death studies →

Lead sponsor

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute is the lead sponsor of 547 studies on the registry; 99 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
55 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Eligible to receive CPR
  2. Satisfying at least one of the following criteria groups

    1. 55 years of age or older with one or more of the following diagnoses:

      • Chronic obstructive lung disease (2 of the 3 of: baseline PaCO2 of > 45 torr, cor pulmonale; respiratory failure episode within the preceding year; in 1 sec \<0.5 L)
      • Congestive heart failure ( class IV symptoms and \< 25%)
      • Cirrhosis (confirmed by imaging studies or documentation of esophageal varices and one of three conditions; hepatic coma, child's class C liver disease, or child's class B liver disease with gastrointestinal bleeding)
      • Cancer ( cancer or stage IV lymphoma)
      • End-stage dementia (inability to perform all ADLs, mutism or minimal verbal output secondary to dementia, bed-bound state prior to acute illness).
    2. 80 years of age or older and admitted to hospital from the community for an acute medical or surgical condition.
    3. If none of the above criteria are met, any patient whose death within the next 6 months would not surprise any member of their care team.
    4. At least 55 years old and predicted risk of death in the next 12 months of >=10% as calculated with the HOMR Now! Score

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patients or SDMs who do not speak English.
  • Patients or SDMs who do not provide .
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(5)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

FEV1

From a breathing test (spirometry): how much air you can blow out in the first second. Often given as a percentage of what is expected for your age, height and sex.

NYHA class (heart failure)

The New York Heart Association’s four classes of how much heart failure limits physical activity.

I
No limits: ordinary activity causes no undue tiredness or breathlessness.
II
Slight limits: comfortable at rest, ordinary activity causes symptoms.
III
Marked limits: comfortable at rest, less than ordinary activity causes symptoms.
IV
Symptoms even at rest; any activity makes them worse.

Studies set their own limit — many outside heart failure leave out class III–IV, while heart failure studies may ask for a particular class. Check the class this study names.

LVEF (left ventricular ejection fraction)

The share of blood the heart’s main pumping chamber (the left ventricle) pushes out with each beat, measured by an echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) or a MUGA scan. About 50–70% is normal.

Metastases

Cancer that has spread from where it began to other parts of the body. “Metastatic” cancer is cancer that has spread this way.

Informed consent

Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.

You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Supportive care
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
200 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Intervention - Decision Support

    In addition to the regular conversation about CPR that a patient's physician may have with them, participants will be given a two-part intervention. First, the participant will receive a values clarification tool which helps them rate and understand which relevant values are most important to them. There are two forms of this tool, a full and simplified version. All participants in this arm will receive both, in randomized order. The second aspect of the intervention is an educational video about the potential risks and benefits of CPR, which all participants in this arm will receive.

    Behavioral: Decision Support

  • No intervention
    Control

    Participants in this arm will receive usual care, the regular conversation about CPR that their physician may have with them.

Interventions

  • BehavioralDecision Support

    A two-part intervention to help patients make better decisions about CPR

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. CPR Orders

    The proportion of patients with an order for CPR in the medical record

    Time frame: 14 days post enrollment

Secondary outcomes

  1. Patient/Substitute Decision Maker (SDM) satisfaction with decision-making

    Decision-making domain of the Canadian Health Care Evaluation Project (CANHELP) questionnaire

    Time frame: Immediately after intervention, or enrollment for control group

  2. Decisional Conflict

    Measured using a modified version of the Decisional Conflict Scale

    Time frame: Immediately after intervention, or enrollment for control group

  3. Health Resource Usage

    Case costing system at the Ottawa Hospital data warehouse used to measure total cost of hospital care for patients (direct and indirect)

    Time frame: From enrolment to 1 year after enrollment.

  4. Number of documented goals of care conversations

    Count of documented goals of care conversations, defined as "a conversation that addressed at least one of the following domains: patient values and goals; prognosis or illness understanding; end-of-life care planning; or code status (that is, whether or not a patient has requested resuscitation in the event of a Code Blue) or desire for other life-sustaining treatments or procedures." (Lakin et al. Health Affairs 36, no.7 (2017):1258-1264). We will report the presence or absence of any goals of care conversation, as well as the mean number of conversations in each group.

    Time frame: Between study enrollment and up to 14 days post enrollment

  5. Quality of documented goals of care conversations

    Mean quality score for the first instance of a goals of care conversation following study enrollment. Quality assessed using the scale developed for Lakin et al. 2017. This scale has a maximum score of 17 and a minimum score of 1.

    Time frame: Between study enrollment and up to 14 days post enrollment

  6. SDM Self-efficacy

    For substitute decision-makers who participate, their confidence to make medical decisions on behalf of their loved will be measured using a 5-question questionnaire. The questionnaire asks SDMs to rate their knowledge and confidence about different aspects of decision-making, on a scale from 0 (not confident at all) to 4 (very confident). SDM self-efficacy will be calculated as the mean score among the 5 questions.

    Time frame: Immediately after intervention, or enrollment for control group

  7. Number of emergency department visits

    Count of presentations to emergency department

    Time frame: In the year following index admission

  8. Number of participants with in-hospital mortality

    Participants will contribute to this measure if they die while admitted to hospital

    Time frame: In the year following index admission

  9. Discharge Disposition

    Patient destination on discharge from index admission (home, home with support, rehabilitation, long-term care, etc).

    Time frame: End of index admission

  10. Number of hospital admissions

    Count of admissions to hospital

    Time frame: In the year following index admission

  11. Number of hospital days

    Count of days admitted to hospital

    Time frame: In the year following index admission

  12. Number of ICU days

    Count of days admitted to an intensive care unit

    Time frame: In the year following index admission

07

Study locations

2 sites
  • The Ottawa Hospital General Campus
    Ottawa, Ontario K1H 8L6, Canada
  • Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus
    Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 4E9, Canada
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Ran from Oct 2017 to primary completion in Oct 2018, 12 months.

Of 105 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Death, half reached primary completion within 24 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 14 and three quarters within 48. This study's 12 months is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 109 studies reached it within 24 months; a quarter within 14 and three quarters within 48.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Aug 28, 2017
First posted
Sep 19, 2017
StartActual
Oct 1, 2017
Primary completionActual
Oct 22, 2018
CompletionActual
Oct 22, 2018
Last update
Dec 26, 2018
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Dec 26, 2018, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03287895
Collaborators
Canadian Frailty Network, The Ottawa Hospital Academic Medical Association
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Sep 19, 2017
Start date
Oct 1, 2017
Primary completion
Oct 22, 2018
Completion
Oct 22, 2018
Last update
Dec 26, 2018

Study contacts

Daniel Kobewka
principal investigator · Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Dec 2018. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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