RAPP- Systematic E-assessment of Postoperative Recovery in Patients Undergoing Day Surgery (RAPP)

Introduction Day surgery is a well-established practice in many European countries, but only limited information is available regarding postoperative recovery at home though there is a current lack of a standard procedure regarding postoperative follow-up. Furthermore, there is also a need for improvement of modern technology in assessing patient related outcomes such as native software applications. This article describes the RAPP study protocol, a mixed-methods study to evaluate if a systematic e-assessment follow-up in patients undergoing day surgery is cost effective and improves postoperative recovery, health and quality of life.

Methods and analysis This study is a mixed-methods study design that includes a multicenter, two-group, parallel, single-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT) and qualitative interview studies. One thousand patients >17 years of age who are undergoing day surgery will be randomly assigned to either e-assessed postoperative recovery follow-up daily in 14 days measured via smartphone app including the Swedish web-version of Quality of Recovery (SwQoR) or to standard care (i.e. no follow up). The primary aim is cost effectiveness. Secondary aims are improvements on postoperative recovery, health-related quality of life (QoL) and overall health; (b) to determine whether differences in health literacy have a substantial and distinct effect on postoperative recovery, health, and QoL; and (c) to describe day-care patient and staff experiences with a systematic e-assessment follow-up after day surgery.The primary will be measured at 2 weeks postoperatively and secondary outcomes b) at 1 and 2 weeks and c) at 1 and 4 months.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Postoperative Complications
• Intervention / Treatment: Device: Smartphone app Recovery Assessment by Phone Points (RAPP)

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1046
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Sweden
  • Örebro, Sweden, 70185
    • Örebro university hospital, Day surgery department

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Understand the Swedish language in speech and writing, have an Android or iPhone OS smartphone, and give their informed consent to participate

Exclusion Criteria:

• Undergoing abortion, if their journal entries indicate alcohol and/or drug abuse or memory impairment, if they are participating in another clinical trial or suffering from visual impairment. .

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: RAPP, e- assessed follow-up; A mobile application (app) is installed on each patient's own smartphone. The app includes the Swedish web version of the QoR (SwQoR). After a patient is discharged from the day-surgery department, the patients in the intervention group will answer the RAPP daily for 14 days. His or her smartphone will initiate the postoperative recovery measurements daily through a "push" function. Each question will appear separately on the mobile phone screen and will disappear from the screen immediately after a response is given. The app also contains a question asking if the patient wants to be contacted by a nurse, which they will answer with a YES or NO. If YES, a nurse at the day surgery department will contact the patient and offer further information and assistance. The number of contacts and the reasons for contact requests will be documented.	Device: Smartphone app Recovery Assessment by Phone Points (RAPP); An e-assessed follow-up of day surgery patients postoperative recovery measured via smartphone app
No Intervention: Control; The control group will receive standard care; i.e., no follow-up

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Cost effectiveness	The analysis of cost effectiveness will consider the costs associated with the follow-up, gained QALYs from SF-6D. The SF-6D provides a means for using the SF-36 by estimating a preference-based single-index measure for health from these data using general population values. This analysis will be complemented with information regarding the individuals' willingness to pay for the follow-up, number of healthcare contacts, and duration and degree of sick leave.	14 days postoperatively

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Postoperative recovery	All participants will evaluate their postoperative recovery using the SwQoR. Participants in the intervention group will answer by using the smartphone app, and those in the control group will use a conventional paper-based questionnaire.	7 and 14 days postoperatively
Quality of Life (QoL)	QoL will be assessed with the SF-36	Preoperatively(baseline) and 14 days postoperatively
Overall health	Overall health will be measured by the EQ visual analog scale (EQ-VAS). This scale consists of a vertically graduated scale with endpoints (anchors) of 0 indicating worst imaginable health state and 100 indicating best imaginable health state	Preoperatively(baseline) and 14 days postoperatively
Health literacy	To measure health literacy (i.e., the equality perspective), we will use the Japanese Communicative and Critical Health Literacy scale (C&CHL scale), which includes items covering the major aspects of communicative and critical health literacy. The C&CHL scale has been translated into Swedish and demonstrated to be understandable, stable over time, and equivalent to the Japanese C&CHL scale in terms of language and content	14 days postoperatively
Patient experience of the intervention	Following the RCT, inductive qualitative research will be conducted to explore the perceptions, views, experiences, and expectations of the participants from the intervention group. Data will be collected based on 20 semistructured interviews. A purposeful sampling will be conducted. Patients who wished to be contacted by a nurse via the RAPP during the intervention period will be selected, with variation regarding age and gender. The aim of this study is to explore the participants' experience of postoperative recovery and how using the RAPP for postoperative follow-up influenced this recovery. Further questions will be asked regarding the participants' experience of being contacted by a nurse; in addition, descriptions and eventual expectations about the help that was received will also be solicited. All interviews will be recorded and transcribed verbatim.	1 month postopertively
Staff experience of the implementation	As part of this RCT, we will also describe the staffs' experience of using a systematic postoperative follow-up tool and their willingness to pay for the follow-up service. We plan to make the data from the patients' daily postoperative recovery measurements available to the staff at the day-surgery departments and to record the experiences and opinions of the clinicians. The study design will be qualitative and will use focus-group interviews. One to two focus-group interviews with 5-8 participants each will be conducted at each hospital, depending on the size of the day-surgery department. Staff from the day-surgery department (nurses, surgeons, and anesthesiologists) will be asked to participate in the interviews. All interviews will be recorded and transcribed verbatim.	4 months postoperatively

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Örebro University, Sweden
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Ulrica Nilsson, Prof, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Örebro University, Sweden

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Nilsson U, Jaensson M, Dahlberg K, Odencrants S, Gronlund A, Hagberg L, Eriksson M. RAPP, a systematic e-assessment of postoperative recovery in patients undergoing day surgery: study protocol for a mixed-methods study design including a multicentre, two-group, parallel, single-blind randomised controlled trial and qualitative interview studies. BMJ Open. 2016 Jan 13;6(1):e009901. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-009901.
• Jaensson M, Dahlberg K, Eriksson M, Gronlund A, Nilsson U. The Development of the Recovery Assessments by Phone Points (RAPP): A Mobile Phone App for Postoperative Recovery Monitoring and Assessment. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2015 Sep 11;3(3):e86. doi: 10.2196/mhealth.4649.
• Nilsson U, Dahlberg K, Jaensson M. Swedish Web Version of the Quality of Recovery Scale Adapted for Patients Undergoing Local Anesthesia and Peripheral Nerve Blockade (SwQoR-LA): Prospective Psychometric Evaluation Study. JMIR Perioper Med. 2021 Jan 15;4(1):e23090. doi: 10.2196/23090.
• Halleberg Nyman M, Nilsson U, Dahlberg K, Jaensson M. Association Between Functional Health Literacy and Postoperative Recovery, Health Care Contacts, and Health-Related Quality of Life Among Patients Undergoing Day Surgery: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Surg. 2018 Aug 1;153(8):738-745. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2018.0672.
• Jaensson M, Dahlberg K, Nilsson U. Sex Similarities in Postoperative Recovery and Health Care Contacts Within 14 Days With mHealth Follow-Up: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Perioper Med. 2018 Mar 26;1(1):e2. doi: 10.2196/periop.9874.
• Dahlberg K, Philipsson A, Hagberg L, Jaensson M, Halleberg-Nyman M, Nilsson U. Cost-effectiveness of a systematic e-assessed follow-up of postoperative recovery after day surgery: a multicentre randomized trial. Br J Anaesth. 2017 Nov 1;119(5):1039-1046. doi: 10.1093/bja/aex332.
• Jaensson M, Dahlberg K, Eriksson M, Nilsson U. Evaluation of postoperative recovery in day surgery patients using a mobile phone application: a multicentre randomized trial. Br J Anaesth. 2017 Nov 1;119(5):1030-1038. doi: 10.1093/bja/aex331.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: October 1, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): July 1, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): July 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 5, 2015
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 7, 2015
• First Posted (Estimate): July 8, 2015

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimate): September 27, 2016
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 26, 2016
• Last Verified: September 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Outcome and Process Assessment; Smart Phones; Ambulatory Care
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Postoperative Complications
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2014-4765

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
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No