Study to Test the Efficacy of Online Education to Increase Safe Use of Opioid Medication.

Medication Safety Pilot Study

The purpose of this project is to test whether an online pain medication intervention is a feasible and effective way to increase opioid pain medication safety.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Medication Adherence
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Experimental

Detailed Description

The goal of the study is to test the efficacy of the pain medication safety intervention for increasing safe management of prescription medication opioids. The study will use a randomized, controlled design that compares the intervention (painACTION medication safety lessons) to a waitlist control condition.

The hypotheses related to efficacy are that, as compared to the control group, people in the experimental group will demonstrate:

1. Increased self-efficacy for how to safely manage medications (primary outcome)
2. Increased behaviors associated with safely managing medication (secondary outcome)

Participants:

Investigators will recruit the first 148 respondents who meet the inclusion criteria and consent to be in the study.

Experimental Group. Participants will be given instructions via email to review eleven online lessons about opioid medication safety. Instructions will suggest that participants view one lesson per day for eleven consecutive days. Each educational lesson focuses on one or two aspects of medication safety, including how to safely store medication, and the importance of taking medication exactly as prescribed.

Control Group. The control group is a waitlist control. Participants will be given access to painACTION after the intervention period and follow up assessments are completed.

Randomization: Participants will be randomized by gender and age.

Procedure: Participants will be recruited with the help of the participating clinic. Staff members will let people know about the study by giving out informational fliers. The flier will direct people who are interested in participating in the study to an online screener. Those who screen in will automatically be lead to a consent form. Participants randomized to use painACTION will be sent the link to the online program and provided with a code that will serve as a Personal Identification Number (PIN) to access the program and return for subsequent sessions. The codes will also allow research staff to track program activity. The numbers are generated as participants agree to participate in the study and will begin with 0001 and continue to 0140 as the investigators add participants. The Research Coordinator will only provide assistance with the technical aspects of navigating the program. All assessments will be administered online. The battery will take no more than thirty minutes to complete. Several studies have determined that online assessments have many advantages over other modes of data collection (Webb et al., 1999; Yun, 2000). Online administration allows: (1) automation of the data collection process; (2) standardization of administration; (3) the use of personalized e-mail invitations at the precise assessment time points; (4) opportunities for participants to complete questionnaires on their own time and in the setting most comfortable to them; and (5) greater protection of confidentiality and conservation of resources because no written record exists. In addition, a number of studies have demonstrated that participants prefer computer-assisted self-interviews to traditional methods of data collection, and are more honest with computers (Johnston & Walton, 1995, Paperny et al., 2000). The increase in precision translates to greater power to detect real effect differences and higher confidence in the validity of the data. Information will not be saved if the browser is closed and the questionnaire has not been completed and submitted.

Assessments: Data will be collected from participants at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and one month post intervention.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 176
• Phase: Phase 2

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Newton, Massachusetts, United States, 02464
      • Inflexxion Inc

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Be willing and able to provide consent
• Have the ability to read and write English
• Diagnosis of non-cancer chronic pain
• Prescribed opioids and taking consistently for 3 months.
• Over 18 years old

Exclusion Criteria:

• Previously visited painACTION

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Experimental; Participants will be given instructions via email to review eleven online lessons about opioid medication safety. Instructions will suggest that participants view one lesson per day for eleven consecutive days. Each educational lesson focuses on one or two aspects of medication safety, including how to safely store medication, and the importance of taking medication exactly as prescribed.	Behavioral: Experimental; Participants will be given instructions via email to review eleven online lessons about opioid medication safety. Instructions will suggest that participants view one lesson per day for eleven consecutive days. Each educational lesson focuses on one or two aspects of medication safety, including how to safely store medication, and the importance of taking medication exactly as prescribed.; Other Names: painACTION website
No Intervention: Control; The control group is a waitlist control. Participants will be given access to painACTION after the intervention period and follow up assessments are completed.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Self-efficacy - 8 Item Measure Taps Into Key Concepts Associated With Confidence for Managing Opioid Medications	Responses are measured on a 4-point Likert scale (1= "Not at all confident" and 4= "Extremely confident"). The total Score range:8=least confident, 32=most confident. How confident do you feel in your ability to do each of the following activities, today?; I can recognize side effects that are related to my opioid medicine.; I can avoid giving my opioid medicine to someone else. Etc.. 1 - Not at all confident 2 - Somewhat confident 3 - Very confident 4 - Extremely confident Items have been generated from literature. Content validity: assessed by asking two experts if items are important and relevant. Internal consistency of the items in the pilot measure will be assessed (Cronbach's alpha). Test-retest reliability will be explored by asking 50 participants in the control group to retake the pilot measure within 3-5 days of having taken the measure as part of the pretest.	Baseline - Day 1, Posttest - Day 16 (intervention took 15 days), One month Followup - at 1 month post-intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Satisfaction With the Program	We tested and analyzed participants' satisfaction with the program by asking the question: "Overall, how satisfied were you with the lessons." They answered on a 4 point Likert scale: 1=Not at all satisfied, 2=Somewhat Satisfied, 3=Satisfied, 4 = Very satisfied. Higher values indicate higher satisfaction.	One-month followup assessment

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Inflexxion, Inc.
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Donovan, Ph. D., Inflexxion, Inc.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: September 1, 2012
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 1, 2013
• Study Completion (Actual): September 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 11, 2013
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 15, 2013
• First Posted (Estimate): January 17, 2013

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): May 19, 2014
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 21, 2014
• Last Verified: April 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Medication Safety; Opioid Pain Medication; Correct storage; Correct disposal; Correct Use
• Other Study ID Numbers: MedSafetyStudy; Endo Pharmaceuticals (Other Identifier: Endo Pharmaceuticals)