Preparing Family Caregivers to Make Medical Decisions for Their Loved Ones

Heart Failure Clinical Trial

Official title:

Preparing Family Caregivers of Very Ill Patients for End-of-Life Decision Making

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT02429479
• Other study ID #: 37476
• Secondary ID: 1R01NR012757-01A
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: June 1, 2013
• Est. completion date: June 30, 2021

Study information

• Verified date: August 2021
• Source: Milton S. Hershey Medical Center
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

The overarching goal of the project is to improve the process and experience of surrogate decision-making by family caregivers. Since feeling unprepared to make surrogate decisions is a major contributor to caregiver stress, the primary outcome is caregiver self-efficacy --i.e., caregivers' assessment of how well prepared they feel to serve effectively as a surrogate decision-maker. Through follow-on Renewal funding, we are now also qualitatively examining family caregivers' experience with surrogate decision-making.

Description:

The long-term goal is to help family caregivers of seriously ill patients be better prepared to serve as surrogate decision-makers when their loved ones can no longer make medical decisions for themselves. Research shows that family caregivers find surrogate decision-making highly stressful and emotionally burdensome, in part because they feel unprepared for surrogate decision-making. To date, no studies have determined which advance care planning (ACP) process best prepares caregivers for this role. The investigators' prior work shows that a computer-based decision aid can help patients make more informed decisions and communicate their wishes more effectively. The investigators now propose to determine if family caregivers of patients with life-threatening illnesses are better prepared for surrogate decision-making: 1) when they engage in a structured ACP process together with patients; and 2) when they use this online decision aid for ACP. This will be accomplished via a randomized, controlled trial with a 2 x 2 factorial design comprising 4 groups: Standard ACP/Patient Alone (Group 1), Decision Aid/Patient Alone (Group 2), Standard ACP/Patients and Caregivers Together (Group 3), and Decision Aid/Patients and Caregivers Together (Group 4).

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 285
• Est. completion date: June 30, 2021
• Est. primary completion date: June 30, 2017
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

1. 18 years of age or older

2. Diagnosis of kidney disease (e.g. chronic kidney disease, end stage renal disease ) OR advanced cancer (Stage IV disease or having an estimated survival of <2 years) OR severe heart failure (e.g. New York Heart Assoc. Class III or Class IV) OR severe lung disease (e.g. Stage III or Stage IV COPD by modified GOLD Spirometric Classification, Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis).

3. Able to read and understand English at an 8th grade level (word 26 on either blue or tan version of the WRAT-3 reading subtest)

4. Neuro-cognitively able to engage in ACP (Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) score >23)

5. No active suicidal ideations (i.e., score of 0 or 1 on item 9 of the BDI-II).

Exclusion Criteria:

• Failure on any of the above inclusion criteria.

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Heart Failure
• Kidney Diseases
• Lung Diseases
• Neoplasms

Intervention

Behavioral:
• Making Your Wishes Known
Making Your Wishes Known provides tailored education, values clarification exercises, and a sophisticated decision aid that translates an individual's goals and preferences into a specific medical plan that can be implemented by a healthcare team.
• Standard advance care planning
This is a online simple living will form.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Brigham & Women's Hospital	Boston	Massachusetts
United States	Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center / Penn State College of Medicine	Hershey	Pennsylvania

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Milton S. Hershey Medical Center	Brigham and Women's Hospital, National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Self-efficacy	Family caregiver self-efficacy is measured using a validated questionnaire to determine if they feel better prepared to serve as surrogates for their loved one.	6 weeks
Secondary	Accuracy of medical decisions	Family caregiver responses to treatment decisions hypothetical clinical vignettes will be compared to the decisions for the same vignettes made by their loved one. Each vignette has 6-8 associated treatment decisions; the family caregiver's response for each item will be compared with the loved one's (i.e., patient's) response, and a total concordance (i.e., number of items for which there is agreement) will be calculated.	6 weeks
Secondary	Family caregivers' stress associated with actual (i.e., real-life) surrogate decision-making	Using validated instruments and semi-structured interviews, family caregivers who have made a major medical decision on behalf of their loved one will report their level of distress, decisional conflict, satisfaction with decision, and experience with surrogate decision-making.	1-2 years
Secondary	Family caregiver knowledge	Family caregivers will complete a questionnaire that assess their knowledge of surrogate responsibilities and end-of-life medical conditions and treatments	6 weeks - 2 years
Secondary	Depth of communication	Family Caregivers are interviewed about the depth of communication with their loved one (frequency, content, helpfulness of discussions) regarding advance care planning issues.	2 years
Secondary	Satisfaction with advance care planning	Participants who complete the advance care planning interventions fill out an evaluation of the intervention using a 16-item questionnaire. This instrument comprises: Twelve 5-point Likert-style questions on how the program presented various kinds of information; helped the user clarify values, choose a spokesperson, etc.; and helped the user document or be prepared communicate their wishes to others.; Three 10-point Likert-style questions on user overall satisfaction, with the advance directive created by the intervention, and the amount of information provided.; One open-ended item asking how the intervention was helpful.	1st study visit

External Links

•   This is the website for the intervention arm advance care planning decision aid.