Congenital Heart Adolescents: Program of Transition Evaluation Research (CHAPTER)

Evaluation of Novel Transition Interventions for Youth With Congenital Heart Disease

The objective of this study is to evaluate the potential role of a cardiology clinic-based educational intervention for 15 to 17 year olds with congenital heart disease (CHD) and their parents, and to determine whether this intervention results in improved self-management skills (e.g., renewing medication prescriptions), teens having greater knowledge of their heart condition, and more teen and parent satisfaction with services. The results of this study will form the basis for a website that in turn may serve as an additional means of providing transition interventions. The results of this study may also be applicable to youth with other special health care needs.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Congenital Heart Defects
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Clinic-based Educational Intervention

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 66
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Alberta
    • Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2B7
      • Stollery Children's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 15 years to 17 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age 15-17
• Followed in the Stollery Pediatric Cardiology Clinic or the Northern Alberta Adult Congenital (NAACH) clinic
• Moderate or Complex Congenital Heart Disease (as defined by the 2001 Bethesda guidelines) or Acquired Heart Disease (cardiomyopathy (dilated, hypertrophic, or restrictive forms), Marfan's syndrome or rheumatic heart disease with cardiac involvement)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Developmental Delay, reading level below grade 6 based on patient or parent report

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Clinic-based Educational Intervention; This will involve a 60 minute interaction between the teen and an advanced practice nurse (APN) in the cardiology clinic. A MyHealth passport will be created covering the name of the teen's cardiac condition, previous cardiac interventions, and name and purpose of the teen's medications. Potential late cardiac complications and contact names and location of local adult CHD cardiologists will also be reviewed. Three scenarios regarding adolescent risk taking behaviors (written in the 3rd person) will be presented to the teen who will be asked what advice he/she would offer to the teen in each of those scenarios. The teen will be given a study email address and encouraged to contact the APN by email or text messaging with follow-up questions. If no contact is initiated after 1 week, the APN will email or text (based on preference) the youth, to discuss additional questions.	Behavioral: Clinic-based Educational Intervention; This will involve a 60 minute interaction between the teen and an advanced practice nurse (APN) in the cardiology clinic. A MyHealth passport will be created covering the name of the teen's cardiac condition, previous cardiac interventions, and name and purpose of the teen's medications. Potential late cardiac complications and contact names and location of local adult CHD cardiologists will also be reviewed. Three scenarios regarding adolescent risk taking behaviors (written in the 3rd person) will be presented to the teen who will be asked what advice he/she would offer to the teen in each of those scenarios. The teen will be given a study email address and encouraged to contact the APN by email or text messaging with follow-up questions. If no contact is initiated after 1 week, the APN will email or text (based on preference) the youth, to discuss additional questions.
No Intervention: Usual Care; Youth seen in the Cardiology clinic see a nurse only to measure weight, height, and blood pressure. They rely on their cardiologist for information about their heart condition. The approach and amount of time taken by each cardiologist with a youth varies. Time-pressured clinic visits limit the opportunity to discuss many of the topics noted above.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire (TRAQ) Score	The TRAQ is the most rigorously evaluated transition readiness questionnaire available and was developed in the USA. It has 29 items with two domains, self-management (16 items) and self-advocacy (13 ). The TRAQ is at a grade 5.7 reading level and uses a Likert scale. Each item is scored 1-5, with 1 being assigned for responses of "No, I do not know how" and a score of 5 assigned for responses of "Yes, I always do this when I need to." The TRAQ scores produced include an overall score and a subscale score. The overall score and the subscale scores are calculated simply by taking the average score across the items in the questionnaire (or subscale). The higher the score, the greater the perceived self-management or self-advocacy skills of the participant. The lower scores indicate the participant has a lower perceived level of self-management or self-advocacy.	Baseline, 1 month and 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
MyHeart Score	Change in patient knowledge of his/her CHD (MyHeart score), comparing baseline to 1 month and 6 months follow-up. The MyHeart scale was developed for this study and has a grade 4.6 reading level. It consists of seven short answer or multiple-choice questions. Given the heterogeneity of prior medical and surgical interventions and need for medications in adolescents with heart disease, the denominator for some questions varied from one participant to the next. Accordingly, each participant was assigned a percentage correct score (numerator/denominator×100) at each time point. Higher percentage correct score reflects better patient knowledge of his/her CHD	Baseline, 1 month and 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Alberta
• Collaborators: Women and Children's Health Research Institute, Canada; Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Andrew S Mackie, MD, SM, University of Alberta

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Warnes CA, Liberthson R, Danielson GK, Dore A, Harris L, Hoffman JI, Somerville J, Williams RG, Webb GD. Task force 1: the changing profile of congenital heart disease in adult life. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2001 Apr;37(5):1170-5. doi: 10.1016/s0735-1097(01)01272-4. No abstract available.
• Sawicki GS, Lukens-Bull K, Yin X, Demars N, Huang IC, Livingood W, Reiss J, Wood D. Measuring the transition readiness of youth with special healthcare needs: validation of the TRAQ--Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire. J Pediatr Psychol. 2011 Mar;36(2):160-71. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsp128. Epub 2009 Dec 29.
• Mackie AS, Islam S, Magill-Evans J, Rankin KN, Robert C, Schuh M, Nicholas D, Vonder Muhll I, McCrindle BW, Yasui Y, Rempel GR. Healthcare transition for youth with heart disease: a clinical trial. Heart. 2014 Jul;100(14):1113-8. doi: 10.1136/heartjnl-2014-305748. Epub 2014 May 19.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: January 1, 2011
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 1, 2013
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 27, 2011
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 27, 2011
• First Posted (Estimate): January 31, 2011

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): June 26, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 23, 2017
• Last Verified: June 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Adolescent; Health Care Transition
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Heart Diseases; Cardiovascular Diseases; Congenital Abnormalities; Cardiovascular Abnormalities; Heart Defects, Congenital
• Other Study ID Numbers: AM-Chapter-01

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No