Compassionate Communities Neighbourhood Program (WECCC-NHB)

Compassionate Communities Neighbourhood Program: Cluster Randomized Trial

This study will evaluate a Compassionate Communities-based intervention aimed at reducing social isolation by mobilizing individuals to act on their health and social needs individually, and in collaboration with fellow members of their community. The intervention program includes facilitated building of neighbourhood networks (member benefits include access to practical help, the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships, and community mobilization), and coaching support to work on individualized goal setting and more detailed navigation support and planning.

Study Overview

• Status: Unknown
• Conditions: Chronic Disease; Aging
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Neighbourhood exchange; Behavioral: Quality of Life Assessment

Detailed Description

The Compassionate Communities intervention is catalyzed by professional facilitators who visit communities with high concentrations of elderly and vulnerable residents, and recruit those who are interested in a project to identify their own health and social needs, assets and priorities; to collectively work to support each other in achieving these; and to implement a neighbourhood exchange to more easily match offers of help to people who need help. The mobilization work starts with the facilitator, who is employed by a community or social service organization, but increasingly draws on the energies of the mobilized initial participants as volunteers who conduct further community outreach in their community, attracting and mobilizing other residents, peers, and neighbouring resources in the work. Participants also plan and implement a broad range of activities identified by the residents as their priorities for neighbourhood building. Participants and their caregivers have the option of receiving more in-depth 1:1 coaching support to work on individualized goal setting, more detailed navigation support or advanced care planning following the sessions.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 1000
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Windsor, Ontario, Canada, N8T 1B5
      • Hospice of Windsor-Essex

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:

• Seniors (65 years of age and older)
• people with disabilities
• caregivers of seniors or people with disabilities
• residing in identified buildings/ neighbourhoods where the WECCC Compassionate Communities Neighbourhood program is being launched
• able to communicate in English or interpreter can be arranged

Exclusion Criteria:

• not able to communicate in English and interpreter cannot be arranged

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Immediate; Quality of Life Assessment plus facilitated implementation of neighbourhood exchange and personal care support	Behavioral: Neighbourhood exchange; Facilitated coaching support to identify needs and priorities and link with resources - personal, community, friend and family, or from professional service providers; plan and implement a personalized care pathway through community exchange; Behavioral: Quality of Life Assessment; Completion of baseline measures
Active Comparator: Delayed; Quality of Life Assessment	Behavioral: Quality of Life Assessment; Completion of baseline measures

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Perception of social disconnectedness	Social disconnectedness scale; 8-item validated scale (Cornwell and Waite, 2008), higher scores indicate greater social disconnectedness	change from baseline at 7 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Perception of personal well-being	Assessed by Personal Well-Being Index (PWI); 8-item scale (Personal well-being index 5th edition, 2013). Higher scores indicate greater well-being	change from baseline at 7 months
Perceived loneliness scale	Assessed by Perceived loneliness scale; 9-item validated scale (Cornwell and Waite, 2009). Higher scores indicated greater perceived isolation	change from baseline at 7 months
Attainment of personal goals	Assessed by Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) instrument, measured on 5-point scale for each goal identified (Hurn et al, 2006), higher score indicates greater goal attainment	Change from baseline at 7 months
Health related quality of life	Assessed by Euroqol 5 dimension 5 level (5D-5L) scale; 5 levels of response for each of 5 items, score is converted to a single index, standardized to scale of 0 to 1, 1 being perfect health	change from baseline at 7 months
Perceived provisions of social relationships	Social provisions scale; 10-item validated scale consisting of 5 subscales (Caron, 2013). The SPS 10 measures the perception of social support and consists of 10 items expressed as statements with responses coded on a 4-point scale from strongly disagree (= 1) to strongly agree (= 4). The total SPS-10 score is formed by the summation of raw scores, with high score indicating a higher degree of social provisions (maximum score of 40)	change from baseline at 7 months
Number of emergency department visits	Number of emergency department visits measured from health administrative data	7 months
Number of hospital admissions	Number of hospital admissions measured from health administrative data	7 months

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Cost-effectiveness	Cost-effectiveness ratio measured as difference between groups in total health care utilization costs (measured from administrative data) divided by quality adjusted life years gained from the intervention	7 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: McMaster University
• Collaborators: Windsor-Essex Compassionate Care Community; University of Windsor; Hospice of Windsor and Essex County; Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN); Ontario Trillium Foundation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Michelle Howard, PhD, McMaster University; Principal Investigator: Lisa Dolovich, PharmD, McMaster University; Principal Investigator: Kathryn Pfaff, PhD, University of Windsor; Principal Investigator: Merrick Zwarenstein, PhD, Western University; Principal Investigator: Denise Marshall, McMaster University; Principal Investigator: Ross Upshur, Sinai Health Systems; Principal Investigator: Carol Bennett, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Anticipated): September 1, 2018
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): March 31, 2020
• Study Completion (Anticipated): March 31, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 5, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 14, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): August 16, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 16, 2018
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 14, 2018
• Last Verified: August 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: disability
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Disease Attributes; Chronic Disease
• Other Study ID Numbers: 001-WECCC

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: Undecided

Drug and device information, study documents

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