Using Caring Contacts to Reduce Psychiatric Morbidity Following Hospitalization During the COVID-19 Pandemic

August 23, 2022 updated by: Dr. Ayal Schaffer, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Subjects will be recently discharged patients from Sunnybrook Inpatient Psychiatry Unit. Subjects will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to either the Caring Contact intervention or usual care. 75 subjects will be enrolled in each arm. In additional to usual discharge-related care, subjects in the caring contact group will receive brief emails that convey a message of hope and provide resources. These emails will be sent on days 4, 21, and 56 post-discharge. The specific content of these emails will be pre-determined varying slightly by time point. In contrast, the control group will only receive usual discharge-related care, including discharge planning and also a sheet of resources normally provided to patients. A widely used and validated measure will be employed to assess depression and anxiety symptoms. The 25-item self-report Hopkins Symptom Checklist will be emailed to all subjects at baseline, day 4, 21, and 56 post-discharge, along with the Caring Contact communication. It is hypothesized that there will be a significantly greater reduction in mental health symptoms among patients receiving Caring Contacts compared to those who receive usual care.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

102

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

  • Canada
    • Ontario
      • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4N 3M5
        • Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

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

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Provision of written informed consent
  • Inpatient status in Sunnybrook Inpatient Psychiatry Unit at time of recruitment
  • Have an email or mailing address
  • Ability to read and understand English
  • The ability to understand and comply with the requirements of the study and capable of providing informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

  • A primary Major Neurocognitive Disorder diagnosis

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: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Caring Contacts Group
Other: Caring Contacts
Caring Contacts are brief email communications sent to the patient post-discharge. They convey messages of hope, support, promote a sense of belonging, and provide information on resources for care. They are not written uniquely for each patient but are purposefully crafted to intervene on those specific vulnerabilities that form the core of many patients' experiences with intense emotional distress and suicidal thoughts.
No Intervention: Standard Treatment Group

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25)
Time Frame: Baseline, day 4, day 21, day 56 post-discharge
The HSCL-25 is a widely-used and validated self-report questionnaire using a Likert scale to measure symptoms of anxiety and depression. Change scores in anxiety and depression will be used to assess effectiveness of intervention.
Baseline, day 4, day 21, day 56 post-discharge

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Rosalie Steinberg, MD, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

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 (Actual)

August 4, 2020

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 31, 2021

Study Completion (Actual)

July 31, 2021

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 30, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 30, 2020

First Posted (Actual)

July 2, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

August 24, 2022

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 23, 2022

Last Verified

August 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 1804

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

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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