Steps to Eliminate Postoperative Problems (STEPP)

March 5, 2021 updated by: University of Pennsylvania
Radical cystectomy with urinary diversion is associated with substantial perioperative morbidity, including deep venous thrombosis, prolonged ileus, and postoperative functional decline. Post-operative morbidity after cystectomy prolongs the length of stay, increases the risk of readmission, and adds substantially to health care costs. Protocols that emphasize early and frequent ambulation after surgery decreases post-operative morbidity, but poor patient adherence diminishes the effectiveness of these protocols, which are currently implemented only during the hospital stay. Financial incentives overcome present bias and offer a novel and practical approach to increasing ambulation during the post-operative period in the hospital and also after discharge. This application proposes a pilot randomized, controlled trial to estimate the effect size of financial incentives on achieving a patient-specific daily step goal in the hospital and post-discharge for 1 month following radical cystectomy. Secondary outcomes include step count, composite morbidity, and functional decline. Forty-six adults with bladder cancer undergoing radical cystectomy at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania will be randomized to either control (education of step goal with monitoring and daily feedback) or a gain financial incentive combined with a lottery incentive if they achieve 75% of the daily goals during the study period. Fitbit Zips will be used to measure step counts for all participants. This proposal will provide the preliminary data needed to design future, larger trials that will test the effect of financial incentives to increase ambulation on post operative complications, readmissions, and functional decline.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

In this application, a randomized controlled trial will be used to test the hypothesis that small financial incentives can be used to increase post-operative ambulation. The randomized controlled trial design is necessary to demonstrate a causal relationship between the intervention (provision of financial incentives)and the outcome (increased ambulation). This design will also provide preliminary data (e.g. effect sizes, feasibility) needed to design larger trials that will determine whether increases in ambulation produced by financial incentives can be translated into decreases in clinically relevant outcomes such as post-operative complications, readmissions, and functional decline in patients undergoing major abdominal surgery.

All participants will receive education about the importance of early ambulation and knowledge of their daily step goals. A Fitbit Zip, a commercially available activity tracking device with the ability to record and wirelessly upload step counts, will be provided to each participant to measure the outcome of daily step counts for a lead in period of 1-2 weeks before surgery and 30 days after surgery with the option for patients to continue to submit data independently for up to 90 days after surgery. The lead-in period will provide data to determine a patient-specific daily step count baseline. Step count goals will change each week and be determined by a set-percentage of the patient-specific baseline. The percentages will be as follows: 10% of baseline for week 1, 25% of baseline for week 2, 40% of baseline for week 3, and 55% of baseline for week 4. Data will be collected using the Way To Health platform, a digital platform specifically designed to facilitate randomized controlled trials testing interventions increase health promoting behavior.

Participants will be randomized using simple balanced randomization into one of two arms: "control" or "financial incentives". Individuals will be informed if they fail to achieve adequate steps and would have otherwise been eligible for payments in order to leverage regret aversion. The financial incentive is framed as a "gain" rather than a "loss" because striving to achieve a positive reward may provide the necessary support to positively motivate patients who just had major, painful surgery. Small definite payments are combined with larger lottery-based payments to provide ongoing feedback coupled with the possibility of winning a higher magnitude reward. Automated notification about payments will be delivered through the participant's preferred mode of communication (e.g., phone call, email). Patients will track their earnings and step count over time through Way to Health.

Beginning shortly before the planned surgery and continuing for 30 days after date of surgery, all participants will use Fitbit Zips to measure daily step counts. Patients will have the option of submitting up to 90 days of post-operative data. Post-operative ambulation has been repeatedly demonstrated to be beneficial to recovery by a number of different metrics, and the Zip device has been shown to be an accurate measure of step counts. The Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire (SHAQ) is a broadly used and validated questionnaire which, in its shortened form, assesses subjects ability to perform 20 different actions and the need for assistance with these actions. It also captures patients global assessments of pain and well-being. This will be administered preoperatively, 30 days post-operatively, and 90 days postoperatively to measured post-operative functional decline. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) Short Seven Day form quantifies patient reported levels of physical activity over the seven days prior to the interview. It is similarly broadly used and has been previously validated against accelerometer data. This will be administered preoperatively, 30 days post-operatively, and 90 days postoperatively to measure post-operative decline in physical activity and to discover differences in baseline physical activity that are not captured by preoperative step-count data.The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MPPSS) is a validated tool for assessing patient's self-assessed degree of support from others. Prior research has suggested social support as an important factor in exercise behavior, which is consistent with our clinical observations. This will be administered pre-operatively and a 30 and 90 days post-operatively to help account for confounding by this important and otherwise unmeasured variable.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

34

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Pennsylvania
      • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
        • Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

21 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Planning to undergo radical cystectomy (either with ileal conduit, Indiana pouch, neobladder (e.g., Studer or Hautmann pouch) at the University of Pennsylvania
  • Patient has been diagnosed with bladder cancer
  • Patient is at least 21 years of age
  • Patient is ambulatory with baseline ECOG performance status less than or equal to 2

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Patient knows he or she will be unable or unwilling to use a mobile device and online tool to upload activity data
  • Poor preoperative performance status (ECOG 3 or greater)
  • Plan for cystectomy without cutaneous ureterostomies (without a bowel diversion)
  • Non-English speakers
  • Patient is non-ambulatory
  • Patient is incapable of consenting himself or herself prior to surgery (Because participating in this trial involves ongoing effort on the part of the subject, patients who are incapable of consenting for themselves at baseline are excluded)
  • Patients who do not have at least 24 hours of pre-operation ambulation data

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: PREVENTION
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Financial Incentive

Financial Incentive to Increase Ambulation: A financial reward is given on a per day basis when subject meets daily step goal, 1/5 chance to win additional monetary prize if patient uploads step count data for at least 75% of study days.

Subjects will use Fitbit Zip to track step counts
Other: Financial Incentive to Increase Ambulation
Financial Incentive and possibility for financial lottery entry in addition to education on the benefits of post-surgery ambulation
NO_INTERVENTION: Control (Education)
Subjects in this group will receive standard education on the benefits of post-surgery ambulation only Subjects will use Fitbit Zips to track step counts

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Days Step Goal Completed
Time Frame: 30 days
Number of days during the study period that each subject reaches their step goal
30 days

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Steps Taken Per Day
Time Frame: 30 days
Average number of steps taken per day in the 30 day postoperative period. Note that the average number of steps taken per day is calculated separately for each patient as simply (total number of steps taken in the 30 day postoperative period)/30. For the purposes of comparing the two study groups, nonparametric tests and medians are used. Thus the "measure type" listed in the "Outcome Measure Data Table" is correctly listed as "median". For example, in the Financial Incentive arm, we report a median average number of steps per day as 979, implying that half of the patients walked fewer than 979 steps on an average day and half of the patients walked more than 979 steps on an average day in that group.
30 days
Composite Morbidity Outcome of Complications, Unplanned Readmissions, or Emergency Department Visits
Time Frame: 30 days
Binary variable reflecting whether or not patient suffered any of the following: any postoperative complication, any unplanned readmission, any presentation to the emergency department within 30 days after surgery.
30 days
Functional Decline as Assessed by the Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire (SHAQ)
Time Frame: 1 months

30-day postoperative Stanford Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (SHAQ) score, indicating subjects ability to perform daily tasks.

Scores range continuously from 0-4 representing no disability to complete disability respectively. Scores >2 are usually considered severe disability.

The total score is computed as the mean of 8 categories: dressing/grooming, arising, eating, walking, hygiene, reach, grip, and activities. Each category consists of a list of 2-3 actions. The participant selects whether they are able to perform each action "without any difficulty", "with some difficulty", "with much difficulty", or "unable to do". These selections are scored 0-4 respectively. The category is assigned the maximum score of its component actions. If the subject requires assistance from a person or device for an individual action, the minimum score for that action is 2.
1 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Pennsylvania

Collaborators

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Gregory Tasian, MD,MSc,MSCE, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
  • Principal Investigator: Thomas Guzzo, MD, MPH, University of Pennsylvania

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

August 1, 2016

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

December 1, 2018

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

February 1, 2019

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 17, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 22, 2016

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

August 26, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

March 9, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

March 5, 2021

Last Verified

March 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 825215
  • UL1TR000003 (NIH)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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