There are about 3204 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.
The present study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of conversational chatbot in improving mental health literacy, uptake of self-care behaviors, and mental well-being, compared to the waitlist control. This study will provide important findings for the future development and implementation of chatbots in mental health, which may increase public access to immediate mental health support. It is hypothesized that participants in the experimental condition will show (H1) better mental health literacy (H2) better improvement in self-care and self-efficacy in mental well-being, and (H3) better mental well-being, compared with participants in the control condition. Upon completing the screening and pre-evaluation questionnaire, participants will be randomly assigned to the experimental group or waitlist control group based on computer-generated random digits. They will complete 2 more sets of questionnaires, including a post-evaluation 10 days after group allocation, and a follow-up questionnaire 20 days after group allocation. In the experimental group, participants will go through one assigned chatbot each day for 10 days, with the sequence of the assigned chatbot randomized. The chatbot contents are developed by clinical psychologists and well-being promotion officers. Content includes relationships, stress, value, emotion, and positive psychology. Each chatbot can only be assessed on the day of distribution. The access link will expire upon completion and the day after distribution to prevent repeat and delay in completion. Experimental group participants can freely access all chatbots after the completion of post-evaluation and before the follow-up questionnaire is sent to them. In the waitlist control group, participants are to refrain from using the chatbot until they finished the follow-up questionnaire. All participants will be able to access the chatbot materials in an online platform after they have completed the research.
Falls are the second leading cause of unintentional injury and death around the globe. About one in every three older adults falls each year worldwide. With the aging population, the cost of treating fall-related injuries is increasing exponentially. There is a pressing need for a cost-effective fall prevention program. Ample evidence has shown the substantial standalone effectiveness of well-designed physical exercises in preventing falls. However, continuous exercise adherence is required for a long-lasting fall prevention effect. Unfortunately, adherence to an exercise program was generally only 21%. Building up the habit of doing regular exercise is thus crucial in preventing falls. Lifestyle integrated Functional Exercise program (LiFE) has been shown to be able to reduce the fall rate by 31% and maintain 64% of the participants exercising at 12 months follow-up. This proposed randomized controlled trial aims at comparing the effectiveness of an internet-based LiFE in reducing subsequent falls and promoting exercise adherence in community-dwelling older adults.
Cardiovascular prevention guidelines use estimated 10-year atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk to guide treatment decisions and engage patients in shared decision-making. Research has focused on refining the accuracy of these CV risk calculators for different populations, relatively little has been done to understand how patients perceive their own ASCVD risk. Accurate perception of a patient's risk by both the patient and the doctors is important because this is an important determinant of health-related behaviour. Patients often show optimistic bias when considering their own CV risk and consistently underestimate it. We aim to determine patient perceived versus actual risk of ASCVD in a Chinese population. We aim to better understand the degree to which patients underestimate or overestimate their ASCVD risk and whether patients are better or worse at estimating their ASCVD risk relative to their peers of the same age and sex. Finally, we aim to evaluate patients willingness to follow guideline recommended CV prevention and specifically lipid-lowering therapy.
Osteoarthritis is among the most prevalent form of degenerative joint disease in arthritis. The World Health Organisation identified osteoarthritis as one of the top ten most disabling cause of disease in developed countries, and the single most common cause of disability for elderly persons. In fact, worldwide statistics for men and women over 60 years of age with signs of symptomatic osteoarthritis are estimated to be at 9.6% and 18.0% respectively. In Hong Kong, the latest census revealed that 514,000 people suffer from degenerative arthritis, representing 0.7% of the population. Although these values are much lower than the international figures reported by the WHO, it is inevitable that the prevalence of osteoarthritis will continue to rise with an increasing trend of obesity and an aging population in Hong Kong. Similar to any other chronic disease with wide prevalence, the impact of osteoarthritis translates to a substantial socioeconomic burden on a societal level. Total knee arthroplasty has become the gold standard to manage the pain and disability associated with end-stage arthritis who have exhausted all conservative measures. Although contemporary advances in prosthesis design, surgical techniques, postoperative rehabilitation regimes have hasten patient's recovery, the restoration of proprioception and neuromuscular control is often prolonged despite solid rehabilitation regimes. Knee bracing is one of the non-pharmacological modalities designed to evenly distribute load and provide proprioceptive feedbacks for those with knee injuries or knee pain. There are four categories of knee braces for the purpose of prophylactic, functional, rehabilitative and unloader/off-load. This study will mainly be focusing on the effects of the unloader/off-loader brace. Previous studies have demonstrated the effects on alteration of kinematic variables, including range of movement (p=0.002), speed of walking (p<0.001) and knee adduction moment (p=0.001) for knee injuries and osteoarthritis as a part of the conservative management protocol. However, there have few studies that investigated whether proprioceptive knee bracing has any role in functional recovery post total knee arthroplasty.
This research attempts to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) enabled device for measuring the dynamic balance ability of older people with a sensor using an optical principle called Frustrated Total Internal Reflection. The AI-based algorithm embedded in the device performs the data analysis for balance ability assessment and falling risk prediction. As a critical part of the research, a large-scale user study is needed to test the validity of the device regarding the dynamic balance ability assessment and the accuracy of the falling risk prediction provided by the device. Also, we plan to study the factors influencing user engagement in this device through the questionnaire-based survey and interview.
The objective of this proposed pilot randomized controlled trial is to examine the efficacy of self-help multicomponent lifestyle medicine intervention and cognitive behavioral therapy relative to a wait-list control group for alleviating depressive symptoms among Hong Kong Chinese adults.
The proposed study aims to examine the clinical efficacy of 24-week Tai Chi training in the prophylaxis of episodic migraine comparing with standard prophylactic medication in Hong Kong Chinese women, and to explore the mechanism of Tai Chi's intervention effect by examining the associations of changes in migraine features with neurovascular and neuroinflammation variations.
This proposed study aims to evaluate incentive strategies on compliance rate of EMA, assess young adults' exposure to alcohol marketing, and its effect on receptivity outcomes, belief in normalization of alcohol drinking and alcohol consumption. The objectives are: 1. To compare the compliance rate of EMA between participants receiving one-off bonus and incremental incentive and receiving incremental incentive only. 2. To assess the association between exposure to alcohol marketing and drinking normalization, in terms of perceived popularity (descriptive norm), perceived social approval (injunctive norm) and positive expectancy. 3. To assess the association between exposure to alcohol marketing and alcohol consumption. 4. To assess the association between exposure frequency and receptivity to alcohol marketing. 5. To assess the association between receptivity to alcohol marketing and drinking normalization. 6. To assess the association between receptivity to alcohol marketing and alcohol consumption. 7. To explore factor structure of perceived popularity (descriptive norm), perceived social approval (injunctive norm) and positive expectancy. 8. To analyse drinking normalization effect in mediating the association between exposure to alcohol marketing, and alcohol consumption, and between receptivity and alcohol consumption.
This was a cross-sectional study. Patients who attended the osteoporosis clinic of Kowloon Hospital from June to December 2022 were recruited. Grip strength and appendicular skeletal muscle mass index were measured with a Jamar dynamometer and a bioimpedance analyser. Since most patients in our clinic are of Chinese ethnicity, the diagnostic criteria in the Consensus Update on Sarcopenia Diagnosis and Treatment by the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia in 2019 was utilised. The diagnosis of sarcopenia was established by the presence of both low grip strength (Male: < 28 kg, Female < 18 kg) and low appendicular skeletal mass (Male: < 7.0 kg/m2, Female: < 5.7 kg/m2)
This experimental study aims to develop an internet-based self-help money management program that improve financial self-efficacy and its associated adverse outcomes among adult population with severe mental illness. In particular, this study compares the efficacy of the internet-delivered self-help money management program with the wait-list control group. The online money management program course will consist of 4 weekly modules, incorporating the key components of money management and the Model of Human Occupation (MOHO). The program include the concept of money management, money management skill, and risk of financial exploitation. The main component of each module will be presented in video format, quiz, and homework. Materials will be presented interactively to facilitate engagement.