Clinical trial NCT01497886: Effect of Intervention to Improve Stroke Recognition
Official title: Randomized Controlled Trial Effect of Novel Intervention to Improve Stroke Symptom Recognition
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Stroke
Keywords: Stroke
Children
Hip Hop Stroke
New York City
Lead sponsor: Columbia University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
First posted: 2011-12-23
Enrollment: 4614
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 7
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: Despite the abundance of stroke education materials available, studies continue to reveal severe deficiencies in stroke literacy (knowledge of symptoms, urgent action, and prevention measures). Expensive mass media stroke education campaigns are not sustainable for this purpose, particularly in economically disadvantaged populations. Instead, the investigators propose to intervene in school classrooms with children aged 9 to 11 years, to teach the five cardinal stroke symptoms, the correct course of action when they occur, and to highlight the potential therapeutic benefit of early hospital arrival, with the intent that the children will then educate their parents. To help accomplish this, the investigators have developed a program called Hip Hop Stroke (HHS), which is comprised of rap songs and two animated musical cartoons that incorporate stroke knowledge.

Detailed description: Stroke is the leading cause of serious long-term adult disability in the U.S. and third leading cause of death, and has a 2-fold greater incidence in Blacks compared to the majority Americans. Thrombolytic revascularization treatment administered within a maximum of 3 hours from symptom onset reduces morbidity, mortality and cost; however, only 3% of patients arrive at the hospital within 3 hours,4 mostly due to the public's lack of knowledge concerning stroke symptoms, and the appropriate response when they are recognized, which is to call 911. The investigators propose to reduce these delays using a novel behavioral intervention to improve symptom recognition and response in a high-risk, minority, economically disadvantaged population. Despite the abundance of stroke education materials available, studies continue to reveal severe deficiencies in stroke literacy (knowledge of symptoms, urgent action, and prevention measures). Expensive mass media stroke education campaigns are not sustainable for this purpose, particularly in economically disadvantaged populations. Instead, the investigators propose to intervene in school classrooms with children aged 9 to 11 years, to teach the five cardinal stroke symptoms, the correct course of action when they occur, and to highlight the potential therapeutic benefit of early hospital arrival, with the intent that the children will then educate their parents. To help accomplish this, the investigators have developed a program called Hip Hop Stroke (HHS), which is comprised of rap songs and two animated musical cartoons that incorporate stroke knowledge.

Targeting children to intervene with their parents has been rarely and sporadically attempted in various content areas, but the interventions have used traditional teaching methods that do not engage the children, and little success has been reported. In contrast, the HHS intervention was designed in collaboration with school-aged children, children's education television/media experts, as well as public health experts, school principals, and neurologists. As a result, not only is the targeting of children for this purpose an important innovation, but so is the careful development of materials designed to appeal to them. Moreover, the investigators note that utilizing children as a "transmission vector" for carrying out interventions aimed at their parents has the potential to serve as the basis for intervention in any number of other areas, for example, medication adherence, healthy eating and weight loss, treatment of diabetes, and so on.Thus, the significance of the proposed trial addresses the public health problem under study stroke symptom identification and response as well as development and refinement of a more general model of intervention.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* 4th-6th grade children and their parents in selected elementary public schools in the same geographical region/community with similar socioeconomic status (SES) and Ethnic composition.

Exclusion Criteria:

* School located in Harlem, New York.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Stroke Symptom and Response Knowledge Assessment (student)
timeFrame: Up to 3 days from baseline
measure: Assessment of child's communication to parent regarding stroke symptoms.
timeFrame: Up to 7 days from baseline
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Assessment of events, latency to arrival at the emergency room.
timeFrame: 12 months from completion, and every 12 months afterwards
measure: Longitudinal Stroke Symptom and Response Knowledge Assessment (student)
timeFrame: 3 months after participation
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: New York
country: United States
facility: Columbia University Medical Center
state: New York
Study officials:
affiliation: Columbia University
name: Olajide A. Williams, MD MS
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Williams O, DeSorbo A, Noble J, Shaffer M, Gerin W. Long-term learning of stroke knowledge among children in a high-risk community. Neurology. 2012 Aug 21;79(8):802-6. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e3182661f08. Epub 2012 Aug 8.
citation: Williams O, DeSorbo A, Noble J, Gerin W. Child-Mediated Stroke Communication: findings from Hip Hop Stroke. Stroke. 2012 Jan;43(1):163-9. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.111.621029. Epub 2011 Oct 27.
citation: Williams O, Leighton-Herrmann Quinn E, Teresi J, Eimicke JP, Kong J, Ogedegbe G, Noble J. Improving Community Stroke Preparedness in the HHS (Hip-Hop Stroke) Randomized Clinical Trial. Stroke. 2018 Apr;49(4):972-979. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.117.019861.