Improving Discharge Communication in the Emergency Department Through Information Structuring

Empathy Skills Clinical Trial

Official title:

Improving Discharge Communication in the Emergency Department Through Information Structuring: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02468869
• Other study ID #: BACOP2
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: April 2015
• Est. completion date: April 2017

Study information

• Verified date: October 2018
• Source: University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The goal of the proposed study is to assess the potential of information structuring for improving discharge communication. Specifically, the investigators aim to examine the advantages of an information-structuring skills training for physicians (compared to an empathy skills training) on discharge communication and associated patient outcomes, such as patients' information recall and adherence to physician recommendations. The investigators hypothesize that patients receiving structured discharge information from their trained physicians will be able to recall more information and show higher adherence to recommendations relative to controls (i.e., patients receiving discharge information from doctors trained in empathy skills).

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 196
• Est. completion date: April 2017
• Est. primary completion date: April 2017
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Outpatients with chest pain

• Outpatients with abdominal pain

Exclusion criteria:

• Patients younger than 18 years of age (limited ability to provide informed consent)

• Patients with limited ability to communicate in German, the default language at the hospital (confounder related to language proficiency)

• Patients with dementia (confounder arising from pathological memory deficits)

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Emergencies
• Empathy Skills
• Information Structuring Skills

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Communication skills training "empathy skills"

• Communication skills training "information structuring skills"

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Switzerland	University Hospital Basel, Emergency Department	Basel	Baselstadt

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland	Max Planck Institute for Human Development, University of Basel

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Switzerland, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Patients' recall of the information provided during discharge communication		3 times: immediately after discharge, one week after discharge, one month after discharge
Secondary	Adherence to recommendations		2 times: one week and one month after discharge
Secondary	Patient satisfaction in four dimensions	(1) comprehension, (2) structuredness (3) recommendation of the physician to family and friends (4) informativeness	Immediately after discharge