There are about 3753 clinical studies being (or have been) conducted in Hong Kong. The country of the clinical trial is determined by the location of where the clinical research is being studied. Most studies are often held in multiple locations & countries.
Child poverty is a prominent global health issue owing to its detrimental impact on a child's physical and psychosocial well-being. Nearly 356 million children lived in extreme poverty globally before the pandemic and this is estimated to worsen significantly. children growing up in poverty are more vulnerable to its effect and have an increased risk of psychosocial and developmental problems than children from affluent families. The impact of poverty is not only immediate during childhood but can persist into adulthood. Previous studies have shown that Chinese children from low-income families reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms, lower levels of self-esteem, quality of life, and life satisfaction than children from affluent families. Recent studies have revealed the promising effects of musical training to promote psychological well-being among children and adolescents and paediatric brain tumour survivors, improving psychosocial skills of children with autism, to enhance the quality of life and psychological health by promoting positive emotions and cognitive and social development. Promoting the psychological health of school-aged children from low-income families through enhancing their resilience has received limited research attention. Additionally, there is a lack of intervention studies to promote resilience in school-aged children from low-income families. This proposed research, therefore, aims to conduct a pilot randomised controlled trial to determine the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effects of a musical training programme in enhancing resilience and self-esteem, reducing depressive symptoms and improving the quality of life among children from low-income families. The findings from the study could inform the policymakers and healthcare professionals in health services design and the importance of advocating the psychological needs of children from low-income families by providing adequate community resources and support. If the programme demonstrates its effectiveness in promoting resilience and self-esteem among children from low-income families, further implementation could be done to maintain its sustainability in the community. Most importantly, the programme may potentially enhance the resilience of the vulnerable children from low-income families to combat poverty and hence break the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
This proposed study will be the first to investigate the effect of the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) Plus Forest Bathing (FB) on blood pressure (BP) and cognitive health for those who are aged 50 and above with hypertension. Hypertension is a major public health issue, and four developments make this research study remarkably important. It is well-documented the Mediterranean diet and Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet have demonstrated efficacy for improving cardiovascular and cognitive health. The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet is a hybrid of the Mediterranean and DASH diets. FB promotes relaxation by inducing the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system, which decrease Heart rate and BP. The initial quantitative phase of the study, a three-arm RCT will be conducted to examine the effects of MIND, MIND plus FB and usual care as control on hypertension. The subsequent qualitative phase in-depth focus group interview is to explore the barriers and facilitators of MIND diet uptake and FB. The participants will include older HK Chinese adults who meet the criteria for hypertension stage 1 and stage 2 of the AHA. The primary outcomes are systolic BP and the secondary outcomes are point of care test of lipid panel, cognitive function, waist-to-hip ratio, body fat percentages and body mass index. The outcome measurements will be recorded before the interventions (T0), immediately after the 4-week face-to-face intervention (T1) and 12-week after 3-month intervention (T2). A total of 48 those who are aged 50 and above with hypertension will be recruited from community centres in Hong Kong to Randomized Controlled Trial and 10 participants differing in levels of compliance to MIND and FB will be purposively selected for face-to-face semi-structured focus group interviews.
Mental illness stigma has been a concerning issue globally due to its adverse effects on the recovery of people with mental illness and may delay help-seeking for mental health out of the concern of being stigmatized. With technological advancement, Internet-based mental health stigma reduction interventions have been developed to combat mental illness stigma and the effects have been promising. The present study aimed to examine the differential effects of Internet-based storytelling programs varied on level of interactivity and stigma content in reducing mental illness stigma. In the present study, the investigator hypothesized that an Internet-based storytelling program with a combination of interactivity and stigma content would lead to the most significant reduction in public stigma, microaggression, and social distance from people with mental illnesses, followed by Internet-based storytelling program with stigma content-only and interactivity-only, compared with control. Secondly, the investigator hypothesized that the effects observed in stigma reduction would be mediated by perceived autonomy and immersiveness due to the presence of interactivity.
The COVID-19 vaccine by BioNTech requires specific, delicate storage and dilution procedures to be stringently followed for safety and effectiveness. Training should be completed prior to undertaking dilution procedures. Currently, the nursing and pharmacy curricula do not have content on specialized vaccine reconstitution techniques. E-learning has become an essential component of teaching and learning due to COVID. Yet, optimal online learning module development for clinical procedural skill acquisition and appropriate online formative assessment has not been adequately explored. To bridge this training gap for Hong Kong nurses and pharmacists, this project aims to develop a video-based online learning programme, coupled to a randomized controlled study to determine the effectiveness of online vaccine reconstitution training. The module, a supplement to the current teaching curriculum, will train students from both Nursing and Pharmacy disciplines. Outcome measures include formative assessment of student performance, which can be used to inform the design and content of experiential content in healthcare professional curriculums. If this learning platform is shown to be effective, the scope could be extended to other disciplines (not limited to healthcare) where learning complex procedural tasks are necessary for the absence of instructor-led teaching.
Depression is one of the most common mood disorders in old age, and yet it is frequently under-detected and under-treated. Adopting a train-the-trainer approach, this project intends to utilize the dance movement therapy (DMT), as intervention, to support elderly people with depressive symptoms.
The study explores the benefits from the application of an all-in-one health monitoring device by care staff in old-age home setting: whether the average time consumed for measuring vital signs (including temperature, blood pressure and SpO2) will be shortened after the adoption of the new device. The study also assesses the satisfaction and perceived usability of the stakeholders towards the all-in-one health monitoring device.
The study has 3 primary research questions and 6 secondary research questions targeting care staff in the setting of residential care homes for the elderly. The 3 primary research questions are: 1. Will care staff perceive the remote real-time health monitoring system with ring-like sensor as efficient? 2. Will the system facilitate any early detection of abnormal vital signs? 3. Will the system facilitate early delivery of medical support? The 6 secondary research questions are: 4. What are the numbers of hospital admissions and further medical assistance due to the adoption of the system? 5. Will the system reduce the stress level of the care staff? 6. What are the perceived benefits and acceptability of the care staff towards the system? 7. What should be considered when developing the evaluation framework for the adaption of the system in elderly residential setting? 8. Are there any barriers and difficulties in the set-up of the system? 9. What are the concerns in choosing wireless or cable connection for the monitoring device?
Background: As major decision-maker for children's wellbeing, parents play a vital role in decisiding on a wide range of health-related issues including vaccination. Such decision-making process will be complicated by a great amount of psychosocial stressors emerging from the current pandemic. Stress can lead to various decision-making biases for children vaccination and subsequently lead to low vaccination intention amongst parents, which may hinder the progress for reaching herd immunity and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Effective risk communication intervention thus is in urgent need to address stress-induced decision-making biases for an upcoming COVID-19 vaccine for young children. Aims: This study will investigate the interrelationships among parental perceived stress, and interpretive bias toward negative vaccine-related stimuli and and vaccination intention. In addition, this study will also conduct a survey experiment to develop positive affect-based messages and test its effect on correcting stress-induced biases in vaccination decision making among parents with high mental stress level. Design and subjects: We aim to recruit parents aged 18 years or above with at least one child in our study. Participants will be recruited from our previous study through WhatsApp. Participants will be invited to read a list of vaccine-related news headlines with a mixture of positive and negative sentiments first. Then they will be asked to complete a series of assessment on their vaccination decision-making and intention. In the next phase, a survey-based experiment will be embedded in the online questionnaire to test the effect of risk communication interventions. Intervention messages will be designed based on previous qualitative study and literatures on positive psychology to simulate parents' positive mental images of COVID-19 vaccination consequences by using positive-affect visual stimuli. Main outcome measures and analysis: Participants will be invited to complete a series of assessments through online questionnaire to assess their mental stress level, negative interpretive bias on processing ambiguous vaccine information and behavioural intention for vaccinating children. Paired t-test will be used to determine negative interpretive bias between high-stress vs. low-stress parents. Structural equation modelling (SEM) will be performed to test the relationships among parental mental stress level, affect-driven decision-making constructs and vaccination intention for children. For the survey-based experiment, the effect of positive-affect messages intervention on tendency of correcting decision-making biases and COVID-19 vaccine uptake for children will be evaluated using logistic regression model with perceived stress level and intervention as the main between-group factors.
Patients with anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury often suffer knee instability, which can be visualized as a wobbling knee during weight bearing exercises, such as the single leg squat. We propose to use the single-leg-squat-and-hold (SLSH) task with kinematic analysis to objectively evaluate dynamic knee stability in ACL injured patients. The aim of this study is (1) to compare knee kinematic variations capturing knee wobbling during SLSH between ACL subjects and healthy controls; and (2) to detect the changes in knee kinematic variations during SLSH following ACL reconstruction.
Fall is a common problem encountered by elderlies. In Hong Kong, the prevalence rate of falls among elderlies aged above 65 years old ranged from 18%-29%, standing at approximately one-fifths of the total elderly population. Falls pose huge threats to the physical and psychosocial health of the elderlies as they are often accompanied by serious injuries such as bone fracture and post-fall syndrome, decreased confidence in walking, and social exclusion. Otago Exercise Program (OEP) was a tailor-made home-based fall prevention program of community-dwelling elderlies. It comprises of 3 main components: 5 lower limb strengthening, 12 balance retraining and walking exercises. Regarding on its effectiveness, multiple studies revealed that OEP and modified version of OEP (mOEP) brought significant improvements on perceived, static and dynamic balance, lower limb strength, quality of life and functional capacity of healthy elderlies and those with various health conditions such as chronic illnesses, osteoarthritis, stroke and hemiplegia. The delivery method of OEP and mOEP has been limited to have elderlies following the instructions and illustrations of a printed booklet. Currently, there are only two proposed effective forms of mOEP: video-instructed and Exergames. Our study attempts to establish a new home-based exercise option incorporating mOEP with video, music and lyrics. It helps to increase the exercise motivation of elderlies, hence their physical performance.