Childhood Influenza Immunisation in General Practice Invitation Trial

Public Health England

Status: Completed

Conditions: Influenza, Human

Treatments: Other: Intervention letter

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02921633

2016_FluInvGP

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study will investigate whether behaviourally informed changes to the invitation process can improve uptake of childhood influenza vaccine by two and three year olds at primary care.

Full description

Previous research has shown that small changes to routine invitations/reminders to attend local health services informed by behavioural science can be used to increase a desired behaviour (e.g. uptake of health checks, reducing missed appointments).

This trial will determine whether an invitation letter, informed by behavioural insights and sent through a central system (Child Health Information System, CHIS), can increase uptake of childhood flu vaccine in primary care.

The trial will take place within the existing national childhood immunisation programme in the participating area in England. Randomisation will be clustered at the primary care practice level. Outcome data will be anonymised, routinely collected, individual-level influenza vaccine uptake data extracted from CHIS. For CHIS data validation purposes, practice-level vaccine uptake data reported through an alternative, routine system will be collected. Data will be collected on additional invitations/communications that primary care practices (in both the intervention and control arms) send to their patients. Cost data for the centralised letter will also be obtained.

The analysis will investigate the main effect of the intervention on uptake of the flu vaccination for all eligible children included in the trial. The model will include primary care practice and Clinical Commissioning Group effects to account for clustering. Secondary analysis will investigate the impact of such individual factors as age, immunisation history and socioeconomic status and practice-level factors (e.g. direct communication from practices) on uptake of the flu vaccination.

Enrollment: 21,786 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 2 to 3 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• 2 years or 3 year olds at 31st August 2016
• Registered with a primary care practice in the participating area

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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21,786 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention letter

Experimental group

Description:

Centrally-sent behavioural-insight informed invitation letter.

Treatment:

Other: Intervention letter

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

No centrally-sent invitation letter.