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CompletedNCT04917445Updated May 26, 2022

The Impact of the SPIKES Protocol With IVF Patients

An interventional study of Spikes-focused bad news protocol in Infertility, sponsored by Boston IVF. Completed at 2 sites in United States. Open to female participants aged 18 Years and older, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2022-05-26.

Sponsored by Boston IVF · Not applicable, Interventional, and Supportive care

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
136
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
Female
01

Study summary

The purpose of this study is to determine if the utilization of the SPIKES protocol for delivering bad news is perceived to be more compassionate and effective than the current standard of care for IVF patients receiving negative pregnancy test results.

Read the detailed description

Presently, nurses at Boston IVF (BIVF) and Weill Cornell Medical Center Division of Reproductive Medicine (Cornell) do not have a scripted method to deliver negative pregnancy tests to in Vitro Fertilization (IVF) patients. This study will invite clinic nurses to assist in the research protocol; half of the nurses will be randomized to be trained on a compassionate way to deliver bad news following the SPIKES protocol, while the other half will continue with the current standard of care of news delivery. The patients who receive the negative test phone calls from participating nurses will be surveyed to see if the method of which the news was delivered was scored as more compassionate, as well as if it was associated with reduced participants reported level of distress and depression.

02

Conditions studied

  • Infertility

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Keywords

  • infertility
  • IVF
  • Spikes protocol
03

In context

Infertility

2,541 studies on the registry are indexed under Infertility; 405 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 136 is above the median of 120 across 1,722 interventional studies indexed under Infertility.

Browse Infertility studies →

Lead sponsor

Boston IVF is the lead sponsor of 15 studies on the registry; none are open to participants now.

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

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Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years and older
Sexes eligible
Female
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

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

  • Female
  • Age >18
  • Underwent an embryo or blastocyst transfer using their own eggs at participating clinic
  • Able to read and understand English
  • Access to email
  • Received a negative pregnancy test result phone call from a nurse involved in the research study

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Partners of patients undergoing treatment
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Supportive care
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Single (Participant)
Enrollment
136 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    SPIKES Protocol Compassionate Call

    Nurses trained to contact IVF patients with negative pregnancy test results who were trained on the SPIKES-focused bad news delivery script.

    Behavioral: Spikes-focused bad news protocol

  • No intervention
    Control: Standard of Care Call

    Nurses who will continue to deliver bad news as they have been in the past without a script.

Interventions

  • BehavioralSpikes-focused bad news protocol

    Nurses trained to deliver bad news to IVF patients based on the Spikes-protocol for compassionately delivering bad news to patients.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Assess if the SPIKES-based nursing script is associated with a difference in perceived nursing compassion

    We revised the Communicating Bad News questionnaire which follows the SPIKES protocol, published by Gonzales-Cabrera et al. Their questionnaire had 25 items, Internal consistency was 0.816. The content validity was established via the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test (KMO) with a score of 0.683 and the Bartlett test of sphericity was p\<0.001. The principal component analysis supported a four dimension construct. There are 22 items rated 1, 2, 3 with a scoring range of 22-66. For the Compassion Assessment, there are 19 slots for the 5 categories so the scoring range is 5-95. The content validity was established via the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test (KMO) with a score of 0.683. and the Bartlett test of sphericity was p\<0.001. The principal component analysis supported a four dimension construct. There are 22 items rated 1,2,3 so the scoring range is 22-66. For the Compassion Assessment, there are 19 slots for the 5 categories so the scoring range is 5-95.

    Time frame: Within 48 hours of phone call

  2. Assess patient distress after receiving the negative pregnancy test phone call

    We will use 5-point Likert scales to assess patient distress after receiving the negative pregnancy test phone call. The Likert scale range is 1-5.

    Time frame: Within 48 hours of phone call

  3. Assess patient depression after receiving the negative pregnancy test phone call

    We will use 5-point Likert scales to assess patient depression after receiving the negative pregnancy test phone call. The Likert scale range is 1-5.

    Time frame: Within 48 hours of phone call

07

Study locations

2 sites
  • Boston IVF
    Waltham, Massachusetts 02451, United States
  • Weill Cornell Medical Center Division of Reproductive Medicine
    New York, New York 10065, United States
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Domar AD, Korkidakis A, Bortoletto P, Gulrajani N, Khodakhah D, Rooney KL, Gompers A, Hacker MR, Grill E. The impact of an adapted SPIKES protocol vs routine care in the delivery of bad news to IVF patients: an exploratory pilot multicenter randomized controlled trial. J Assist Reprod Genet. 2024 Sep;41(9):2367-2377. doi: 10.1007/s10815-024-03198-3. Epub 2024 Jul 19. PubMed 39026124 ↗
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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 Jun 2021 to primary completion in Mar 2022, 9 months.

Of 498 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Infertility, half reached primary completion within 23 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 10 and three quarters within 43. This study's 9 months is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 541 studies reached it within 23 months; a quarter within 10 and three quarters within 42.

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

Registered
May 26, 2021
First posted
Jun 8, 2021
StartActual
Jun 17, 2021
Primary completionActual
Mar 31, 2022
CompletionActual
May 24, 2022
Last update
May 26, 2022
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 May 26, 2022, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
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Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT04917445
Lead sponsor
Boston IVF
Responsible party
Alice Domar (Executive Director of Domar Center for Mind Body Health, Boston IVF) — Principal investigator
First posted
Jun 8, 2021
Start date
Jun 17, 2021
Primary completion
Mar 31, 2022
Completion
May 24, 2022
Last update
May 26, 2022

Study contacts

Alice Domar, PhD
principal investigator · Boston IVF

Oversight

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

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This study is completed, as verified in May 2022. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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