Clinical trial NCT04870450: When Distance is an Act of Love: Exploring the Use of Video Diaries for Family Members of Intensive Care Patients
Official title: When Distance is an Act of Love: Exploring the Use of Video Diaries for Family Members of Intensive Care Patients
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Conditions: Coronavirus
Anxiety Depression
Lead sponsor: University of Edinburgh
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: NHS Lothian
name: University of Hertfordshire
First posted: 2021-05-03
Enrollment: 28
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 16
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: We aim to recruit up to 20 family members who were involved with using video diaries and up to 8 healthcare professionals who supported family members of ICU patients through video diaries. We will recruit family members and healthcare professionals from two of NHS Lothian's ICU's.

Brief summary: Due to Covid-19, intensive care (ICU) patients are not allowed visitors or have severely restricted visiting. After being admitted to ICU most patients are unconscious or extremely weak and therefore cannot speak on a phone or video call to a family member. Before these visiting restrictions, family members of patients admitted to ICU as a result of being critically ill were already known to suffer significant psychological distress and may now face increased distress given they are unable to visit a loved one.

Previous research demonstrates that keeping a paper diary has been found to be helpful for ICU patients and families. When lockdown measures were announced, NHS Scotland introduced video diaries as an emergency measure to try to support communication with families and reduce distress. vCreate is an NHS Trusted secure video messaging service that helps patients, families and clinical teams stay connected throughout their care journey. The use of video diaries may have a positive impact for family members but there is a risk that they could also have negative effects for some people. There is a need to explore both ICU healthcare professionals and family members' experiences of using video diaries. At the same time it is also important to test the feasibility and acceptability of measures of distress and psychological well-being on family members during and after their experience of video diaries. In doing so, some initial recommendations about video diaries can be made and a larger subsequent study planned to test their effect on family members and healthcare professionals.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

- (i) Family Members in Lothian aged ≥16 years receiving a video diary for an ICU patient who stays in ICU for ≥24 hours or more. If the patient dies, family members will be invited to continue in the study.

(ii) ICU healthcare staff in NHS Lothian who have experience of using the video diary to support family members during lockdown.

Exclusion Criteria:

Prisoners Family members lacking capacity to consent Family members aged under 16 years

Primary outcomes:
measure: Qualitative experiences
timeFrame: 3 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: WEMWBS
timeFrame: 3 months
measure: CORE-OM
timeFrame: 3 months
measure: Daily Distress Thermometer
timeFrame: 3 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Edinburgh
country: United Kingdom
facility: University of Edinburgh
state: Lothian
Study officials:
References:
citation: Gazzato A, Scquizzato T, Imbriaco G, Negro A, Caballo Garrido MC, Landoni G, Zangrillo A, Borghi G. The Effect of Intensive Care Unit Diaries on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety, and Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. Dimens Crit Care Nurs. 2022 Sep-Oct 01;41(5):256-263. doi: 10.1097/DCC.0000000000000539.