Partnership for Applied Research in Fracture Prevention Programs for the Elderly (OPTI-FRAC)

Université de Sherbrooke

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Osteoporosis With Current Fragility Fracture

Treatments: Other: Integrated program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT01745068

CIHR grant # 267395

Details and patient eligibility

About

During their lifetime, approximately 50% of Canadian women and 30% of Canadian men will experience at least one fracture due to bone fragility (FF). Evidence is growing regarding prevention programs' effectiveness to prevent falls, but prevention of fractures through fall prevention programs has enjoyed limited success. Falls prevention programs and post-fracture screening programs leading to pharmacological treatment are very different strategies, with a shared ultimate goal. Coordination between those who repair fractures and those who manage the patient to prevent the next fracture is critical. The overarching aim of this proposal is to generate evidence-based knowledge about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an integrated FF prevention program, as well as a portrait of the barriers and facilitating factors for such programs. More specifically, the objectives are: 1) to combine existing fall prevention and post-fracture management programs in the province of Quebec into integrated FF prevention programs; 2) to compare the performance of these integrated programs to control sites, using a pragmatic study design; 3) to identify barriers as well as factors that improve effectiveness across different implementation milieu; and 4) to develop and engage in active knowledge transfer activities in Quebec regions where integrated FF prevention programs are neither adequately nor successfully implemented. Drawing upon the literature on integrated healthcare, fall and fracture prevention, we hypothesize that an integrated FF program can reduce the risk of a subsequent fracture by at least 30% in the population of interest. The proposed team is poised to develop new interdisciplinary collaborations among healthcare practitioners and decision makers involved in the prevention of FFs. The program is built upon existing healthcare and structures and programs and in turn, will truly measure the effectiveness of an integrated FF prevention program. The results will ultimately lead to improvements in the existing knowledge base, address policy-relevant and health systems problems, and assist in the design and implementation of FFs prevention programs.

Enrollment: 631 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 50+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 50 years of age and over
• must have a primary care physician
• must be able to follow simple instructions
• must have sustained a fragility fracture within three months of the recruitment date.

Exclusion criteria

• severe kidney insufficiency (grade 4 or 5)
• advanced stage of cancer
• fracture to sites not commonly associated with osteoporosis such as toe, finger, hand, foot, ankle, patella, head, and cervical spine.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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631 participants in 2 patient groups

Control group

No Intervention group

Integrated program

Experimental group

Description:

Participants will be involved in an integrated interorganisational fragility fracture prevention program, which combines both post-fracture management as well as fall prevention strategies. The intervention will last up to 18 months.

Treatment:

Other: Integrated program