Vitamin D Osteoporosis Long-Term Care Study (ViDOS)

McMaster University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Osteoporosis

Treatments: Other: Educ sessions & LTC Osteoporosis toolkit

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01398527

REB 09-215

Details and patient eligibility

About

The research question is, does a multifaceted, multidisciplinary intervention including small groups, chart audits and point of care tools, increase the number of people receiving optimal vitamin D therapy in the long term care (LTC) setting? Secondary outcomes include the number of falls and fractures experienced by the residents in each LTC home and the number of residents receiving appropriate bisphosphonate therapy.

Full description

This is a cluster randomized controlled trial. In the long-term care (LTC) setting, more research is needed on how health care professionals can be kept up to date on the latest medical evidence for providing care to elderly residents. The LTC environment differs from other health care settings. We need to examine what types of strategies can be used to effectively educate LTC physicians, nurses, and other care professionals about the best care practices.

In this study, we will deliver and evaluate a multi-component educational strategy that builds on research in LTC by our team. In order to evaluate its success, 20 homes will receive the intervention and 20 homes will receive usual care. In the intervention homes, a team of experts will give educational sessions at the LTC home, delivering key messages about "best practices", helping LTC professionals to plan changes for delivering better care, giving feedback about performance, and providing materials (e.g., DVD, treatment plans). We will also train a professional in the home to "champion" the cause after the experts are gone.

The specific "best practices" topic we have chosen to test our model is osteoporosis and fractures. These conditions are very common in the elderly living in LTC and negatively impact quality of life. For example, an individual with a hip or other fracture may experience unnecessary pain and suffering and even pre-mature death. There are effective treatments that can be used to reduce fractures, including vitamin D, which is a low-cost, well-tolerated and easy treatment to deliver. Unfortunately our previous studies have shown that most LTC residents are not receiving effective fracture-prevention treatments. To determine our intervention's success, we will examine whether the rate of vitamin D use and other treatments increases, and whether fewer LTC residents fall and fracture. We are also interested in studying the strategy's format and feasibility and what future changes should be made.

Enrollment: 40 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• LTC homes in Ontario that are serviced by MPGI

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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40 participants in 2 patient groups

LTC Osteoporosis Toolkit Only

No Intervention group

Description:

Homes will receive the LTC osteoporosis toolkit only and will be required to attend an online webinar to outline the toolkit contents.

Educ sessions & LTC Osteoporosis toolkit

Active Comparator group

Description:

LTC homes will receive the LTC osteoporosis toolkit, on line webinar. Three educational sessions lead by an osteoporosis expert will also take place, 1 on-site visit and 2 webinars.