Evaluation and Development of Falls Prevention and Management in the Community for Older Adults

National University of Singapore

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Falls Risk; Falls Prevention

Treatments: Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Older Adults; Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Younger Adults; Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Younger Adults; Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Older Adults; Behavioral: No Message Given

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05198193

NUS-IRB-2020-024

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study investigates how differently-framed messages can affect people's attitude towards falls risk and prevention in older adults. This study considers the potentiality of adult children acting as change agents in influencing parents in falls prevention.

Full description

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted to test the effectiveness of two messaging types (positively vs negatively framed) via two target audiences (older vs younger adults).

The RCT evaluates the effectiveness of the differently-framed messages delivered to older and younger adults in affecting people's attitude toward falls risk and motivating them to learn about preventing falls. Also, the potential of adult children acting as change agents to positively influence parents in preventing falls is explored.

Older and younger adults who are eligible to participate in this study are randomly given one message. For older adults, the objective is to study which message is more effective in affecting their attitude towards falls risk and motivating them to learn about preventing falls. For younger adults, the aim is to understand which message is more effective in motivating them to learn about preventing falls for their parents.

Hypotheses:

H1: The negatively framed message is more effective than the positively framed counterpart in motivating older adults to find out about preventing falls. However, this effect decreases as the socioeconomic status decreases.

H2: The negatively framed message is more effective than the positively framed counterpart in motivating younger adults to find out about preventing falls.

Enrollment: 1,200 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 30+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Singaporean or Permanent Residents (PRs)
• Read/speak English, Mandarin, or Malay
• Either age 60 years old and above, walk independently with or without assistive devices, have no self-reported/detected dementia or cognitive impairments or age between 30 and 59 years old and have either one of the parents age 60 years old and above who walk independently with or without assistive devices

Exclusion criteria

• Not Singaporean or PRs
• Do not read/speak English, Chinese, and Malay
• Age 29 years old and below
• Cannot walk independently with and without assistive devices
• Have self-reported/detected dementia or cognitive impairments

Trial design

Primary purpose: Basic Science

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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1,200 participants in 6 patient groups

Control - Older Adults

Experimental group

Description:

Participants age 60 years old or above.

Treatment:

Behavioral: No Message Given

Positive - Older Adults

Experimental group

Description:

Participants age 60 years old or above.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Older Adults

Negative - Older Adults

Experimental group

Description:

Participants age 60 years old or above.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Older Adults

Control - Younger Adults

Experimental group

Description:

Participants age between 30 and 59 years old.

Treatment:

Behavioral: No Message Given

Positive - Younger Adults

Experimental group

Description:

Participants age between 30 and 59 years old.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Younger Adults

Negative - Younger Adults

Experimental group

Description:

Participants age between 30 and 59 years old.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Younger Adults