Clinical Trials Logo

Clinical Trial Summary

An Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator (ICD) is a device implanted in a patient's chest to monitor the heart rhythm and deliver shocks to terminate potentially lethal arrhythmias when necessary. While ICDs reduce sudden cardiac death, patients with ICDs eventually die of heart failure or other diseases. As patients near the end of life, physiologic changes (intrinsic and extrinsic to the heart) may affect the cardiac conduction system, leading to more arrhythmias and increasing the frequency of shocks. Because ICD shocks can cause pain and anxiety and may not prolong a life of acceptable quality, it is appropriate to consider deactivating the shocking function of ICDs as patients' clinical status worsens and death is near. This will be a randomized controlled trial of a physician centered counseling and education intervention to improve clinician-patient communication about the management of ICDs.


Clinical Trial Description

An Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator (ICD) is a device implanted in a patient's chest to monitor the heart rhythm and deliver shocks to terminate potentially lethal arrhythmias when necessary. While ICDs reduce sudden cardiac death, patients with these devices do eventually die, either of heart failure or other chronic diseases. As a patient's disease worsens, physiologic changes (intrinsic and extrinsic to the heart) may affect the cardiac conduction system, leading to more arrhythmias and increasing the frequency of shocks. Because ICD shocks can cause pain and anxiety and may not prolong a life of acceptable quality, it is appropriate to consider ICD deactivation as a patient's clinical status worsens and death is near. However, these conversations rarely occur. The investigators propose to conduct a randomized clinical trial of a physician-centered patient counseling and support intervention to improve communication between cardiologists and patients with ICDs. The goals of the study are to determine the effectiveness of the intervention to: 1) increase conversations about ICD deactivation, 2) increase the number of patients who have their devices deactivated, and 3) improve mental health outcomes for bereaved caregivers of deceased patients. The unit of randomization is the hospital, the intervention is aimed at cardiologists, and the unit of analysis is the patient. The investigators have created a network of six academic medical centers across the country. The intervention to be delivered consists of three parts. First, the PI will conduct a workshop on communication specific to ICD-deactivation with cardiologists at the intervention centers. Second, when enrolled patients are admitted to the hospital or seen in the outpatient setting, the cardiologist will receive two reminders (one via email, one in the patient chart) that the patient is appropriate for a conversation about ICD deactivation. Finally, cardiologists will receive aggregated feedback about the number of conversations they have conducted and data on patients' satisfaction with conversations every six months. Physicians at usual care hospitals receive a didactic lecture on advance care planning. All patients and surrogates will be interviewed at baseline and then assessed at regular intervals to determine the outcomes of: 1) the prevalence of conversations about ICD deactivation as reported by the patient/surrogate; and 2) the frequency with which patients have their devices deactivated. Caregivers will continue to be interviewed at regular intervals up to 6 months after the patient dies to determine the relationship of the intervention to caregiver mental health outcomes. Given the exponential increase in the number of patients with ICDs, this intervention has the potential to improve the quality of care for thousands of patients near the end of life and their families. ;


Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Endpoint Classification: Efficacy Study, Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment, Masking: Double Blind (Subject, Caregiver, Outcomes Assessor), Primary Purpose: Supportive Care


Related Conditions & MeSH terms


NCT number NCT01459744
Study type Interventional
Source Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Contact
Status Completed
Phase N/A
Start date September 2011
Completion date September 2016

See also
  Status Clinical Trial Phase
Recruiting NCT05650307 - CV Imaging of Metabolic Interventions
Recruiting NCT05196659 - Collaborative Quality Improvement (C-QIP) Study N/A
Recruiting NCT05654272 - Development of CIRC Technologies
Active, not recruiting NCT05896904 - Clinical Comparison of Patients With Transthyretin Cardiac Amyloidosis and Patients With Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction N/A
Completed NCT05077293 - Building Electronic Tools To Enhance and Reinforce Cardiovascular Recommendations - Heart Failure
Recruiting NCT05631275 - The Role of Bioimpedance Analysis in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure and Systolic Ventricular Dysfunction
Enrolling by invitation NCT05564572 - Randomized Implementation of Routine Patient-Reported Health Status Assessment Among Heart Failure Patients in Stanford Cardiology N/A
Enrolling by invitation NCT05009706 - Self-care in Older Frail Persons With Heart Failure Intervention N/A
Recruiting NCT04177199 - What is the Workload Burden Associated With Using the Triage HF+ Care Pathway?
Terminated NCT03615469 - Building Strength Through Rehabilitation for Heart Failure Patients (BISTRO-STUDY) N/A
Recruiting NCT05679713 - Next-generation, Integrative, and Personalized Risk Assessment to Prevent Recurrent Heart Failure Events: the ORACLE Study
Completed NCT04254328 - The Effectiveness of Nintendo Wii Fit and Inspiratory Muscle Training in Older Patients With Heart Failure N/A
Completed NCT03549169 - Decision Making for the Management the Symptoms in Adults of Heart Failure N/A
Recruiting NCT05572814 - Transform: Teaching, Technology, and Teams N/A
Enrolling by invitation NCT05538611 - Effect Evaluation of Chain Quality Control Management on Patients With Heart Failure
Recruiting NCT04262830 - Cancer Therapy Effects on the Heart
Active, not recruiting NCT06026683 - Conduction System Stimulation to Avoid Left Ventricle Dysfunction N/A
Withdrawn NCT03091998 - Subcu Administration of CD-NP in Heart Failure Patients With Left Ventricular Assist Device Support Phase 1
Recruiting NCT05564689 - Absolute Coronary Flow in Patients With Heart Failure With Reduced Ejection Fraction and Left Bundle Branch Block With Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy
Completed NCT04549181 - Problem-Solving for Rural Heart Failure Dyads N/A