CClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT04840407Updated Apr 12, 2021

Stroke Home Health Aide Recovery Program (SHARP) Pilot

An interventional study of SHARP coach intervention in Stroke, sponsored by Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2021-04-12.

Sponsored by Visiting Nurse Service of New York · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research

From the registry’s dates

  • Registered 2 years 11 months after the study started (first participant enrolled May 2018, registered Apr 2021).
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
60
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The project pilot tests an innovative Stroke Home health Aide Recovery Program (SHARP) designed to improve mobility and reduce falls in post-acute home bound stroke patients. SHARP will accomplish this by expanding the home-based rehabilitation team to include a corps of advanced HHAs specially trained as stroke "peer coaches." Coaches provide mentorship and support to generalist HHAs as they collaborate with patients and families to implement the therapeutic regimens prescribed by patients' physicians and rehabilitation therapists.

Read the detailed description

Purpose and Specific Aims This is a pilot to test the Stroke Home health Aide Recovery Program (SHARP) study design elements and procedures in preparation for a larger-scale study that would assess the effectiveness of the model to improve patient outcomes. The overall purpose of SHARP and of this research pilot is to improve patients' function following a stroke. SHARP is designed to improve mobility and reduce falls in post-acute homebound stroke patients by expanding the rehabilitation team to include SHARP Home Health Aides (HHAs) specially trained as stroke "peer coaches." The coaches will provide mentorship and support to direct care generalist HHAs. The direct care HHAs will already be working with patients and families on the exercise regimen prescribed by physicians and rehabilitation therapists.

Main aims are to:

  1. Test recruitment and randomization procedures
  2. Examine program acceptability
  3. Assess intervention protocol implementation fidelity
  4. Examine patient burden, and obtain preliminary estimates of variability/reliability/correlation over time of selected outcomes

Population and Intervention Potential candidates for the SHARP coach positions are drawn from recommendations of HHA field supervisors and from additional HHA volunteers. All must have already completed the Partners in Care health coach introductory program or the equivalent. Nominated candidates will be interviewed by Research and Partners in Care staff to select up to 10 HHA's to engage in SHARP coach training. After coach preparation, rehabilitation therapists are to help identify post-stroke patients who meet the initial pilot study eligibility criteria. A VNSNY Research Assistant reaches out to patients referred by the therapists to assess their interest and eligibility, to explain the intervention and terms of participation and, once patients agree to participate, to obtain their formal consent. After consent, patients are randomized to an intervention or control arm. SHARP coaches are deployed to help with post-stroke rehabilitation care for those randomized to the intervention arm. A total of 60 patients will be recruited - 30 for the intervention arm and 30 for the usual care arm.

Potential Significance The SHARP program that is being developed through this study has the potential to be a high impact approach to enhance home-based post-stroke rehabilitation and improve functional mobility and related outcomes among homebound post-stroke patients. This project represents foundational work for the development of a novel community based approach to enhance stroke recovery. By leveraging an existing infrastructure of paraprofessional care providers (the HHAs), this program may offer a practical and sustainable method for enhancing post-acute care of stroke patients during the critical transition phase from hospital/rehab center to home, and provide a framework for a new cadre of advanced, specialty HHAs. Qualitative and quantitative data derived from this pilot will inform feasibility, study procedures and effect sizes for a larger randomized trial assessing the impact of the SHARP coaching on patient outcomes.

02

Conditions studied

  • Stroke

Browse trials for

Keywords

  • home health aides
  • workforce
03

In context

Stroke

7,283 studies on the registry are indexed under Stroke; 2,013 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 60 is above the median of 50 across 5,366 interventional studies indexed under Stroke.

Browse Stroke studies →

Lead sponsor

Visiting Nurse Service of New York is the lead sponsor of 6 studies on the registry; 2 are open to participants now.

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

04

Who can participate

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

Inclusion criteria

  1. 18 years of age or older
  2. English Speaking
  3. Receiving home health rehabilitation services
  4. Receiving HHA services
  5. No diagnosis of Alzheimer's or Dementia
  6. Experienced a stroke within 90 days of start of home care services
  7. Mobility is impaired but requires no or only minimal assistance and has rehabilitation potential
  8. Was able to walk independently or with assistance pre-stroke

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unable to provide informed consent
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Health services research
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
Double (Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
60 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    SHARP coach arm

    The SHARP Peer Coach supports the direct care HHA and indirectly support the patient/family caregiver to enhance the patient's post-stroke recovery through two main pathways: 1) culturally sensitive, patient-centered reinforcement of rehabilitation regimens (prescribed physical/occupational exercises/training); and 2) early recognition and reporting of barriers to the rehabilitation therapist regarding adherence and recovery, including: a) environmental obstacles, b) family-related issues, c) psychological/clinical barriers (e.g., depression/anxiety).

    Behavioral: SHARP coach intervention

  • No intervention
    Usual care arm

Interventions

  • BehavioralSHARP coach intervention

    The Coach provides guidance and support through four 45-60 minute in-home visits: Visit 1: to facilitate effective team communication, this visit is conducted, when possible, with the rehabilitation therapist, the patient/family, the direct care aide and the Coach, who jointly reviews the rehabilitation plan of care. Visits 2-4 include: discussion/observation of HHA/patient exercise repetition sessions, along with: 1) discussing falls prevention, signs of a recurrent stroke and when to call 911; 2) modeling motivation techniques, assessing adherence barriers and revising strategies for addressing them; and 3) identifying/ reporting signs of anxiety/depression. Additional coaching visits and calls may be scheduled as needed depending on the aide's progress in addressing barriers and the patient's progress toward rehabilitation goals.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Evaluate SHARP recruitment and randomization procedures

    Examine ability to recruit and orient home health aides to be SHARP coaches; evaluate ability to identify and enroll the patient group of interest

    Time frame: 20 months

  2. Assess SHARP program acceptability to coaches/HHAs/patients

    Examination of participant experience and satisfaction with the SHARP program

    Time frame: 30 minutes

  3. Assess SHARP implementation fidelity

    Monitoring of all workflows and planned intervention activities to determine fidelity to the protocol and adjustments that may be needed in a future trial

    Time frame: 15 months

  4. Examine selected covariates and primary and secondary outcome measures for a subsequent larger scale study of SHARP effectiveness

    Examination of patient burden and evaluation preliminary estimates of variability, reliability, and correlation of clinical evaluation measures

    Time frame: 60 days

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Visiting Nurse Service of New York
    New York, New York 10001, United States
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Feldman PH, McDonald MV, Onorato N, Stein J, Williams O. Feasibility of deploying peer coaches to mentor frontline home health aides and promote mobility among individuals recovering from a stroke: pilot test of a randomized controlled trial. Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2022 Jan 31;8(1):22. doi: 10.1186/s40814-022-00979-4. PubMed 35101133 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Apr 12, 2021, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT04840407
Lead sponsor
Visiting Nurse Service of New York
Collaborators
Columbia University
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Apr 12, 2021
Start date
May 7, 2018
Primary completion
Aug 26, 2019
Completion
Aug 31, 2019
Last update
Apr 12, 2021

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 Apr 2021. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

Follow this study

Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.

Sign in to follow

Discussion

Questions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.

Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.

Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.

Start the discussion