Heart FailureNCT01672294
Caregiver Outlook: An Intervention to Improve Caregiving in Serious Illness
A study testing Preparation and life completion in people with Heart Failure and Pulmonary Disease, run by VA Office of Research and Development at 1 site in United States.
Trial summary
Informal caregivers provide a majority of care for patients during serious illness. Lack of preparation and completion may leave caregivers less capable of caring for a loved one or making crucial decisions influencing care. Read more about this study
- Who is it for?
- Ages 18 to 99 years
- Conditions the study is for
- Heart Failure, Pulmonary Disease, Cancer
- What is being tested?
- Preparation and life completion
- Could I receive a placebo?
- No, everyone receives an active treatment
- How many people
- 286 participants
- Where
- 1 siteUnited States
- Study dates
- Jun 2013to Apr 2016
- Phase
- Interventional
- Are there results?
- Yes, posted in the registrySummary in the doctors' view
Key requirements
Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.
- Ages 18 to 99 years
- All sexes
- No healthy volunteers
- Adult, Older adult
Who may be able to join
- Patients with advanced cancer/Congestive heart failure/COPD/End stage renal disease who have a primary caregiver. Caregivers of Durham VAMC patients with advanced disease.
Who cannot join
- No caregiver present.
- Caregiver with Cognitive impairment/inability to speak on phone/non-English speaking
Trial locations and contacts
1 site in 1 country.
United States1 site
Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, NC
Durham, North Carolina, 27705
About this study
Informal caregivers provide a majority of care for patients during serious illness. Lack of preparation and completion may leave caregivers less capable of caring for a loved one or making crucial decisions influencing care.
This study will examine whether a preparation and completion intervention reduces caregiver anxiety, depression, anticipatory grief, and burden and improves patient quality of life and health care use.
Read the detailed description
The investigators propose a randomized control trial to evaluate an intervention of preparation and completion with Veterans and their caregivers during serious illness. Specific aims are to 1) Evaluate the impact of the caregiver Outlook intervention on caregiver anxiety, depression, anticipatory grief, completion, and burden; 2) Evaluate the impact of the home versus in hospital, emergency department, or nursing facility; 3) Evaluate the impact of the intervention session's qualitative content, examining variation associated with selected demographic variables, quality of family communication, and stage of illness on change.
Caregivers in the first group ("Treatment", or "Preparation and life completion") will meet with a facilitator three times for a period of forty-five minutes each. In the first session, subjects will be asked to discuss issues related to relationship life review.
In session two, participants will be asked to speak in more depth about issues such as regret and forgiveness. In the final session, subjects will focus on legacy and celebration. Caregivers in the second group ("attention control" or "relaxation meditation") will meet with a facilitator three times for a period of forty-five minutes each and be asked to listen to a non-guided relaxation compact disk (CD) or participate in a guided relaxation exercise.
Participants in both groups will receive pre and post-test measures administered by a blinded interviewer. Outcome measures will be measures by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - General (FACT-G), Quality of life scale, FACIT-sp sub-scale, Anticipatory Grief Scale, Caregiver Reaction Assessment, the Qual-E completion and preparation sub-scales, and patient days at home.
- Conditions
- Heart Failure, Pulmonary Disease, Cancer
- Being tested
- Preparation and life completion, Attention Control
- Keywords
- caregiver, end of life, self-disclosure
- Medical subject headings
- Heart Failure, Lung Diseases, Neoplasms, Death
What participants receive
What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.
Preparation and life completionOther
Caregiver subjects will discuss life review, issues of forgiveness and heritage and legacy.
Attention ControlOther
Caregiver subjects will listen to a non-guided relaxation CD with facilitator.
| Study group | Role | What they receive |
|---|---|---|
| treatment | Experimental | three facilitator-led end-of-life preparation and completion sessions with a facilitator with both patient and caregiver Receives: Other: Preparation and life completion |
| attention control | Active comparator | three facilitator led sessions of listening to a relaxation CD. Receives: Other: Attention Control |
What is being measured
The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.
Caregiver Anxiety
Profile of Moods States (POMS) anxiety sub-scale The anxiety sub-scale from the modified Brief Profile of Mood States (POMS),7110 a six-item measure of psychological distress. Individual items used a 5 point Likert scale (0-4). The sub-scale minimum score was 0 and maximum was 24 (more anxious ).
Measured: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Secondary outcomes (7)
Spirituality
Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy - Spiritual Well-Being (FACIT-SP) subscale. The 12-item measure assess spiritual well-being: faith, meaning, and purpose. Individual items use a 5 point likert scale (0-4). The scale minimum score is 0 (negative well being) and maximum is 48 (positive well being).
Measured: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Depression
Centers for Epidemiologic Study of Depression short form (CES-D) is a 10-item measure of depression. Items are rated on a 4 point Likert scale (0-3) with total scores ranging from 0 to 30. Higher scores indicate greater depressive symptoms
Measured: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Patient Days of VA Hospital Use
The number of days that a patient used either the VA emergency department (ED) or was an inpatient at a VA hospital in the 6 months following randomization. Inclusion of non-VA utilization was made unpractical due to the long delay in filing for non VA reimbursement (up to 2 years). The original variable was Day AT home, defined to be 180 days minus the days in ED or inpatient hospital. This was changed to days of use due to distribution/modeling considerations.
Measured: In the 6 months after randomization
Caregiver Burden
Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA). The Caregiver Reaction Assessment is a 24-item multidimensional instrument designed to measure a caregiver's reactions to caregiving for family members with a variety of chronic illnesses. The esteem subscale has 7 items with a 5 level Likert scale: 1=Strongly Disagree to 5=Strongly Agree. The score is the average of the 7 items ranging from a low score of 1 associated with negative reactions and high score of 5 with positive reactions.
Measured: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Caregiver Completion
Quality of life at the End of Life (Family Edition) is a 17-item measure of quality of life at the end of life assessing five domains: life completion, relationship with health care providers, preparation for death, physical symptoms and affective social support. The 3-item Life Completion subscale uses a 5 point (0-4) Likert scale. The subscale ranges from 0 (poor) to 4 (better outcome).
Measured: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Prolonged Grief - Number of Participants With Anticipatory Grief
The Prolong Grief Disorder scale is a clinically-based diagnosis determination scale modified for this study. The components/requirements that were dropped were a) diagnosis should not be made until at least 6 months since death, and b) the disturbance is not better accounted for major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder or post traumatic stress disorder. The outcome was a dichotomized variable with 1 indicating symptoms of prolonged grief are present and 0 indicating insufficient symptoms.
Measured: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Caregiver Preparation
Quality of life at the End of Life (Family Edition) is a 17-item measure of quality of life at the end of life assessing five domains: life completion, relationship with health care providers, preparation for death, physical symptoms and affective social support. The 5-item preparation subscale uses a 5 point (0-4) Likert scale. The subscale ranges from 0 (poor) to 4 (better outcome).
Measured: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Timeline
From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.
- First posted24 Aug 2012 (estimated)
- Study startJun 2013
- Primary completionDec 2015
- Study completionApr 2016
Resources
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govThe registry entry this page is built from, with its full change history.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, outcome measures and adverse events reported by the sponsor.
- Other trials for Heart FailureStudies of the same condition, open and under way.
- More trials run by VA Office of Research and DevelopmentThe sponsor's other registered studies.
- What the trial phases meanHow a treatment moves from first tests in people to approval.
More details
For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.
Study design
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase N/A
- Primary purpose
- Supportive care
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Single blind
- Who is masked
- Outcomes assessor
- Enrolment
- 286 participants (actual)
Sponsor and investigators
- Lead sponsor
- VA Office of Research and Development
- Sponsor type
- US federal agency
- Responsible party
- Sponsor
- Investigators
- Karen E Steinhauser, PhD, Principal investigator, Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, NC
IDs, dates and publications
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT01672294
- Sponsor's protocol ID
- IIR 11-347
- Status last verified
- Mar 2017
- First submitted
- 11 May 2012
- Last updated
- 17 Apr 2017
- Results posted
- Yes, on ClinicalTrials.gov
- Data monitoring committee
- No
- Individual data sharing
- No
Study at a glance
From the registry record, last updated by the sponsor on 17 Apr 2017. Recruitment status is as the sponsor reported it: confirm with the study team.
- Official title
- Caregiver Outlook: An Intervention to Improve Caregiving in Serious Illness
- ClinicalTrials.gov ID
- NCT01672294
- Acronym / sponsor ID
- IIR 11-347
- Conditions
- Heart Failure, Pulmonary Disease, Cancer
- Keywords
- caregiver, end of life, self-disclosure
- Study type
- Interventional
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Enrolment
- 286 participants (actual)
- Lead sponsor
- VA Office of Research and DevelopmentUS federal agency
- Study start
- Jun 2013
- Primary completion
- Dec 2015 (actual)
- Study completion
- Apr 2016 (actual)
- First posted
- 24 Aug 2012 (estimated)
- Results
- Posted 17 Apr 2017
Clinical summary
The research question as the sponsor registered it. This describes what the study plans to test, not what it found.
Informal caregivers provide a majority of care for patients during serious illness. Lack of preparation and completion may leave caregivers less capable of caring for a loved one or making crucial decisions influencing care.
This study will examine whether a preparation and completion intervention reduces caregiver anxiety, depression, anticipatory grief, and burden and improves patient quality of life and health care use.
Detailed description
The investigators propose a randomized control trial to evaluate an intervention of preparation and completion with Veterans and their caregivers during serious illness. Specific aims are to 1) Evaluate the impact of the caregiver Outlook intervention on caregiver anxiety, depression, anticipatory grief, completion, and burden; 2) Evaluate the impact of the home versus in hospital, emergency department, or nursing facility; 3) Evaluate the impact of the intervention session's qualitative content, examining variation associated with selected demographic variables, quality of family communication, and stage of illness on change.
Caregivers in the first group ("Treatment", or "Preparation and life completion") will meet with a facilitator three times for a period of forty-five minutes each. In the first session, subjects will be asked to discuss issues related to relationship life review.
In session two, participants will be asked to speak in more depth about issues such as regret and forgiveness. In the final session, subjects will focus on legacy and celebration. Caregivers in the second group ("attention control" or "relaxation meditation") will meet with a facilitator three times for a period of forty-five minutes each and be asked to listen to a non-guided relaxation compact disk (CD) or participate in a guided relaxation exercise.
Participants in both groups will receive pre and post-test measures administered by a blinded interviewer. Outcome measures will be measures by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - General (FACT-G), Quality of life scale, FACIT-sp sub-scale, Anticipatory Grief Scale, Caregiver Reaction Assessment, the Qual-E completion and preparation sub-scales, and patient days at home.
Study design
- Primary purpose
- Supportive care
- Allocation
- Randomised
- Intervention model
- Parallel groups
- Masking
- Single blind (outcomes assessor)
- Number of arms
- 2
| Arm | Type | Receives |
|---|---|---|
| treatment | Experimental | Other: Preparation and life completionthree facilitator-led end-of-life preparation and completion sessions with a facilitator with both patient and caregiver |
| attention control | Active comparator | Other: Attention Controlthree facilitator led sessions of listening to a relaxation CD. |
Who may qualify
- Ages
- 18 to 99 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not accepted
- Age groups
- Adult, Older adult
Key inclusion criteria (1 listed)
- Patients with advanced cancer/Congestive heart failure/COPD/End stage renal disease who have a primary caregiver. Caregivers of Durham VAMC patients with advanced disease.
Key exclusion criteria (2 listed)
- No caregiver present.
- Caregiver with Cognitive impairment/inability to speak on phone/non-English speaking
Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening; this overview does not establish that a patient qualifies. Full inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Interventions
| Intervention | Type | Arms |
|---|---|---|
| Preparation and life completionCaregiver subjects will discuss life review, issues of forgiveness and heritage and legacy. | Other | treatment |
| Attention ControlCaregiver subjects will listen to a non-guided relaxation CD with facilitator. | Other | attention control |
Primary outcome
Caregiver Anxiety
Time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Profile of Moods States (POMS) anxiety sub-scale The anxiety sub-scale from the modified Brief Profile of Mood States (POMS),7110 a six-item measure of psychological distress. Individual items used a 5 point Likert scale (0-4). The sub-scale minimum score was 0 and maximum was 24 (more anxious ).
7 secondary outcomes
Spirituality
Time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Depression
Time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Patient Days of VA Hospital Use
Time frame: In the 6 months after randomization
Caregiver Burden
Time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Caregiver Completion
Time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Prolonged Grief - Number of Participants With Anticipatory Grief
Time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Caregiver Preparation
Time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks
Results and safety
Loading the posted results from ClinicalTrials.gov…
Research links
- Official record on ClinicalTrials.govLast updated by the sponsor 17 Apr 2017.
- Posted resultsParticipant flow, baseline, all outcome measures and adverse events.
- Individual participant dataSharing planned: No
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Referral and contact
AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals. Contact the study team or a site listed below; they decide who can take part. This study is not recruiting at the moment.
Karen E Steinhauser, PhD principal investigator
Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, NC
1 site in 1 country: see every site and its status.
Questions about this trial
What is this clinical trial studying?
A study testing Preparation and life completion in people with Heart Failure and Pulmonary Disease, run by VA Office of Research and Development at 1 site in United States.
The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.
Who may be eligible to take part?
The sponsor lists 1 inclusion and 2 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.
Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?
The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 17 Apr 2017. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.
Where is the study taking place?
The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.
What are the possible benefits and risks?
They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.
Are results available for this study?
Yes. Results are posted in the registry (first posted 17 Apr 2017). A summary is in the For doctors view, and the full results are on ClinicalTrials.gov.
How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?
The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.
What does the primary outcome measure?
Caregiver Anxiety (time frame: Measured at baseline, 5 weeks, and 8 weeks). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.
Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?
No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.
How often is this information updated?
AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 17 Apr 2017; AzTrials last refreshed its copy on 8 Nov 2026.