Clinical trial NCT04434742: The Effects of a Health-social Partnership Program for Discharged Non-frail Older Adults
Official title: The Effects of a Health-social Partnership Program for Discharged Non-frail Older Adults: a Pilot Study
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Transition
Partner Communication
Lead sponsor: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: The Queen Elizabeth Hospital
First posted: 2020-06-17
Enrollment: 75
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 60
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: Previous studies supporting discharged patients are hospital-based which admission criteria tend to include mainly those with complex needs and/or specific disease conditions. This study captured the service gap where these non-frail older patients might have no specific medical problem upon discharge but they might encounter residual health and social issues when returning home.

Detailed description: Objective: To compare the effect of a community-based health-social partnership program with usual care for discharged community-dwelling non-frail older adults on their health-related quality of life, activities of daily living, depressive symptoms, and use of health services.

Design: A randomized controlled trial. Participants: Discharged community-dwelling non-frail older adults from an emergency medical ward in an intervention (n=37) and a control (n=38) group.

Interventions: Discharged older adults were randomized to receive usual care or complex interventions, including structured assessment, health education, goal empowerment, and care coordination supported by a health-social team.

Main measures: The outcomes were measured at pre-intervention (T1) and at three months post-intervention (T2) using the Medical Outcomes Study 12-item Short Form, the Modified Barthel Index and the Geriatric Depression Scale.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* resided in the service areas of the study hospital,
* were aged 60 or over,
* were cognitively competent with a score greater than 26 in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Hong Kong version,
* were living at home before and after discharge from the hospital,
* had scores of \<5 on the Clinical Frailty Scale (Note: a patient is considered to be non-frail if they have a score less than 5), and
* were fit for medical discharge

Exclusion Criteria:

* were not able to communicate,
* could not be reached by phone,
* were bed-bound,
* had active psychiatric problems,
* were already engaged in other structured health or social programs, and
* would not be staying in Hong Kong for the three months of the study

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change from baseline Health-related quality of life: SF-12 at 3 months
timeFrame: At baseline pre-intervention and at three months when the interventions were completed.
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Change from baseline Activity of daily living at 3 months
timeFrame: At baseline pre-intervention and at three months when the interventions were completed.
measure: Change from baseline Presence of depressive symptoms at 3 months
timeFrame: At baseline pre-intervention and at three months when the interventions were completed.
measure: Change from Total number of unplanned outpatient department, general practitioner, and emergency department visits, hospital admissions and total number of health service attendances at 3 months
timeFrame: At baseline pre-intervention and at three months when the interventions were completed.
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Kowloon
country: Hong Kong
facility: Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Study officials:
affiliation: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
name: Arkers KC Wong, Dr
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Wong AKC, Wong FKY, Ngai JSC, Hung SYK, Li WC. Effectiveness of a health-social partnership program for discharged non-frail older adults: a pilot study. BMC Geriatr. 2020 Sep 10;20(1):339. doi: 10.1186/s12877-020-01722-5.