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69 active trials for Chronic Disease

Project to Improve Communication About Serious Illness--Hospital Study: Comparative Effectiveness Trial (Trial 2)

The objective of this protocol is to test the effectiveness of a Jumpstart intervention on patient-centered outcomes for patients with chronic illness by ensuring that they receive care that is concordant with their goals over time, and across settings and providers. This study is particularly interested in understanding the effect of the intervention to improve quality of palliative care for patients with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) but will also include other common chronic, life-limiting illnesses. The specific aims are: 1) To evaluate the effectiveness of a survey-based patient/clinician Jumpstart guide compared to an EHR-based clinician Jumpstart guide for improving quality of care; the primary outcome is documentation of a goals-of-care discussion during the hospitalization. Secondary outcomes include: intensity of care (ICU use, ICU and hospital length of stay, costs of care during the hospitalization, and 30-day hospital readmission); patient- and surrogate/family-reported outcomes assessed by survey at 1 and 3 months after randomization including occurrence and quality of goals-of-care communication in the hospital, goal concordant care, psychological symptoms, quality of life, and palliative care needs. 2) To conduct a mixed-methods evaluation of the implementation of the intervention, guided by the RE-AIM framework for implementation science, incorporating quantitative evaluation of the intervention's reach and adoption, as well as qualitative analyses of interviews with participants, to explore barriers and facilitators to future implementation and dissemination.

Start: July 2021
Serum Prevalence of Sars-Cov-2 Antibodies in Pre-pandemic Blood Samples (SPARE)

The first reports of infections caused by SARS-CoV-2 were released from Wuhan, China in December 2019. From there, the infection quickly spread into a pandemic form. The clinical manifestation of the infection varies enormously, from totally asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic forms, with nonspecific and flu-like manifestations, to an acute respiratory distress syndrome which, in patients requiring hospitalization in the ICU and mechanical ventilation invasive, can lead to death, especially in elderly subjects and carriers of co-morbidities. Recently, the association of blood groups ABO as possible biological markers of susceptibility to COVID-19, has been evaluated, linking blood type O with a lower chance of infection, blood type A with the highest risk, and blood group B with the greatest complications. In Italy, the first non "imported" case dates back to February 2020, although new evidence on subjects tested positive for the antibody assay on serum samples suggests that the virus started to circulate before the official date. Few are the data relating to asymptomatic infections or with mild non-specific and nuanced symptoms that have been quantified in about 85% of the total number of infected. Moreover, thanks to the availability of serological tests that identify the presence of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, it emerged that a proportion of the population was infected by the virus and developed an antibody response and that almost 30% of the people with antibodies were asymptomatic. In order to evaluate the seroprevalence of COVID-19 infection among asymptomatic subjects the investigators will conduct specific serological tests (total antibodies) to identify the prevalence of SARS-2-CoV antibodies among healthy blood donors who went to transfusion facilities of the DIMT in Venice during the pandemic (about 2500 periodic donors who referred to the Transfusion Center in the period between May and October 2019). Patients afferent to the Interinstitutional Multidisciplinary Biobank (BioBIM) of the Research Center of the IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana in Rome, with or without concomitant co-morbidities (about 1000 subject) will be also tested. All samples will be analyzed for any association with sex, age group and blood group.

Start: December 2020
Evaluation of the Effectiveness and Implementation of the BETTER Women Peer Health Coaching Program

The Building on Existing Tools To improvE cancer and chronic disease pRevention and screening in primary care (BETTER) Program allows patients in primary care to have a dedicated visit with a prevention practitioner to discuss chronic disease prevention and cancer screening. A prevention practitioner is a health professional, working in primary care, who has received additional training to discuss chronic disease prevention and screening and develop health goals with patients through shared decision-making. Previous studies have shown that this approach increases the number of prevention and screening actions completed by program participants. However, maintenance of health behaviour changes is difficult without on-going support. There is also some evidence that peer-delivered coaching can improve health outcomes in community settings. As such, the BETTER Women program extends the BETTER program by focusing on 45 to 60-year-old women and providing time-limited support for health behaviour change through peer health coaches. Peer health coaches are volunteers - trained in techniques to support health behaviour change - who support women to achieve their health goals over a 6-month period. In this study, the investigators will explore whether patients who participate in the BETTER Women program (the peer health coaching extension) are more likely to increase the number of prevention and screening actions that they complete after one year, compared to women who participate in the BETTER program but do not get peer health coaching until one year later. The investigators will also examine the implementation of the program to learn about factors that affect various aspects of the success and sustainability of the program.

Start: June 2021
Experience and Understanding of the Mouth, Oral Health and Function Amongst Adults With Disabilities and Complex Health Conditions.

Oral health is the one of the commonest causes of health problems in the world, with almost all individuals suffering from reduced oral health at some stage over their life span. As such, oral health is a major public health issue and a major consumer of health spending. Poor oral health results in pain, infection, structural degradation, functional restrictions in chewing, swallowing and speech, change in facial appearance, social stigma, altered body image, and reduced capacity to participate in social events, amongst others. Global problems of human functioning, disability, health and environment in turn affect oral status in many complex ways (for example, ability to maintain oral hygiene, nutritional restrictions, neuromotor incapacity, dysphagia, ability to access and cooperate with treatment, etc). Disability arises from a social environment that fails to enable everyone to access it regardless of his or her impairment. Disabilities are thus socially created and not dependent on the individual's type or location of impairment. There is currently very limited qualitative research exploring perceptions of the mouth, or oral health within a social environment, from the perspective of disabled adults. No universal, holistic, comprehensive tool exists to describe oral health, the functional impact of oral health, and the environmental factors influencing oral health within the biopsychosocial model. It has been suggested that a framework for such an instrument may be supplied by the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF: World Health Organisation, 2001) This research seeks to address these gaps by describing perceptions of the mouth from the perspective of adults with disabilities and complex health conditions, and by linking this qualitative data to the ICF in order to assess the feasibility of using the ICF to conceptualise oral health. Adults with disabilities and complex health conditions were chosen for this ICF core set preliminary study as existing literature suggests that these respondents would accumulate not only a high level of oral health need but also experience high impact of functioning and environment on oral health.

Start: April 2021
Initial Dual Oral Combination Therapy Versus Standard-of-care Initial Oral Monotherapy Prior to Balloon Pulmonary Angioplasty in Patients With Inoperable Chronic Thromboembolic Pulmonary Hypertension

Chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is characterised by an obstruction of proximal or more distal pulmonary arteries by residual organized thrombi, combined with a variable microscopic pulmonary vasculopathy (microvasculopathy). Besides lifelong anticoagulation, surgical pulmonary endarterectomy is the treatment of choice in subjects with proximal CTEPH affecting large pulmonary arteries. However, around half of CTEPH subjects are not operated, mainly because of distal lesions inaccessible to surgery. International data have reported survival rates of 88, 79, and 70% at 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively, in subjects with inoperable CTEPH, underscoring the need for better treatment strategies. In those subjects, current guidelines recommend medical therapy with or without balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA). Currently, only one drug (riociguat), targeting the NO pathway, is approved and reimbursed in Europe. Thus, riociguat monotherapy is considered as the standard-of-care treatment for subjects newly diagnosed with inoperable CTEPH. Recently, macitentan, targeting the endothelin-1 pathway, showed to be also effective in subjects with inoperable CTEPH. However, macitentan is currently not approved for CTEPH in Europe. BPA has been also reported to improve hemodynamics, symptoms and exercise capacity. However, complications, including mainly vascular injury, may occur during this procedure and it has been shown that the risk of BPA-related complications was strongly related to the level of pre-BPA mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP) and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR). Medical therapy and BPA have in fact complementary effects since they target different lesions. Indeed, BPA targets fibrotic organized thrombi in the segmental arteries down to small pulmonary arteries of 2-5 mm in diameter. Medical therapy, for its part, targets microvasculopathy, similar to that observed in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), in vessels less than 0.5 mm in diameter. Therefore, it is strongly believed that the use of medical therapy prior to BPA may reduce the risk of BPA-related complications by improving pulmonary hemodynamics and may improve global efficacy. In PAH, initial dual oral combination therapy with drugs targeting the NO and endothelin pathways is considered as a standard of care, more efficacious than monotherapy and safe. In contrast, there are no data from controlled trials regarding the efficacy and safety of initial combination therapy regimens versus standard-of-care monotherapy in treatment-naïve subjects with inoperable CTEPH. The investigators hypothesize that initial dual oral combination therapy may be superior to standard-of-care riociguat monotherapy for improving pulmonary hemodynamics prior to BPA and for reducing the risk of BPA-related complications.

Start: March 2021
Evaluation of Patient Education Simulations to Promote Health and Wellness

This pilot study will use a pre-post design to explore the utility of using virtual simulations to provide participant education and counseling for adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors (i.e., physical activity, nutrition, smoking, alcohol use, and anxiety/distress screening) to 60 participants with chronic diseases where lifestyle management is paramount to well-being and disease control (e.g., cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis). Participants will have access to the simulations through a unique password-protected link over the course of one month. Participants will complete two study visits that are 30-60 minutes in duration each. There is also one optional telephone interview with a mental health professional. The telephone interview it estimated to be 10 minutes in duration and will be audiotapes, with participants' permission. The study surveys will be administrated at baseline, immediately following the simulation use and at one-month baseline measures. The measures will assess lifestyle behaviors related to healthy eating, physical activity, emotional health, smoking behaviors and alcohol use. Measures will also assess the psycho-social constructs of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. Finally, the usability of and satisfaction with the simulations will be explored through feedback surveys. The investigator will also seek permission to collect data from the patient's medical chart. Feedback will also be collected from four healthcare providers.

Start: December 2019