Clinical trial NCT02972307: Caregiver-aided Powered Wheelchair Skills
Official title: The Extent to Which Caregivers Enhance the Wheelchair Skills of Powered Wheelchair Users: a Descriptive Cross-sectional Study
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Caregivers
Lead sponsor: Nova Scotia Health Authority
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
First posted: 2016-11-23
Enrollment: 152
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Observational model: CASE_ONLY
Time perspective: CROSS_SECTIONAL
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: dyads of caregivers and the wheelchair users to whom they provide care

Brief summary: There has been only minimal research on wheelchair skills by the caregivers of manual or powered wheelchair. There are no published data on the extent to which caregivers can enhance the mobility of powered wheelchair users. The primary objective of this study is to test the hypothesis that caregivers enhance the wheelchair skills capacity, confidence and performance of the powered wheelchair users to whom they provide assistance. Our secondary objective is to add to the literature on the measurement properties of the wheelchair skills test (questionnaire and capability version) for powered wheelchair users and their caregivers.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* ≥ 18 years of age
* able to communicate in English and/or French (depending upon the site)
* live within 50 km of the research centre
* be willing to participate (as evidenced by completion of the assessment)
* be able to set a scheduled time for the study visit when both the caregiver and wheelchair user will be present and provide informed consent

Caregivers:

* must be an unpaid caregiver (e.g. a family member or friend)
* spend an average total of at least 2 hours per week with the powered wheelchair user that includes powered wheelchair mobility.

Wheelchair user:

* must have his/her own powered wheelchair
* use the powered wheelchair for at least 6 hours per week
* have a caregiver who spends an average total of at least 2 hours per week with the powered wheelchair user that includes powered wheelchair mobility.

Exclusion Criteria:

* have unstable medical conditions (e.g. angina, seizures) that might make the use of a powered wheelchair dangerous
* emotional problems (e.g. severe anxiety, depression) that might make participation unsafe or unpleasant

Primary outcomes:
measure: Wheelchair Skills Test (WST)
timeFrame: one day
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Questionnaire
timeFrame: one day
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Halifax
country: Canada
facility: Nova Scotia Rehabilitation Centre
state: Nova Scotia
Study officials:
affiliation: Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia Health Authority
name: Lee Kirby, MD, FRCPC
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Kirby RL, Rushton PW, Routhier F, Demers L, Titus L, Miller-Polgar J, Smith C, McAllister M, Theriault C, Matheson K, Parker K, Sawatzky B, Labbe D, Miller WC. Extent to Which Caregivers Enhance the Wheelchair Skills Capacity and Confidence of Power Wheelchair Users: A Cross-Sectional Study. Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2018 Jul;99(7):1295-1302.e9. doi: 10.1016/j.apmr.2017.11.014. Epub 2018 Jan 3.