Assessing People's Hospital Outpatient Appointment Preferences in the United Kingdom

The sustainability of the United Kingdom's National Health Service's (NHS) is threatened immediately by Covid-19 and continually by an increasing prevalence of long-conditions that cannot be cured but can be maintained. Shifting traditional face-to-face outpatient appointments to remote video consultations may help the NHS continue to serve patients efficiently. While much research has examined healthcare providers' attitudes and beliefs about remote video consultations, less has attempted to understand how NHS service providers should invite patients to attend them. The present study examines how the framing of an invitation to attend a hospital outpatient appointment by video influences the proportion of people who agree to attend by video. It also explores some of the barriers and facilitators people may experience to attending appointments by video across diagnostic complexities and age groups. The results of this study should help hospitals better present patients with the option to attend video consultations where appropriate, and provide support to mitigate common barriers to people's willingness to give video consultations a go.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Chronic Disease; Hospital Outpatient Clinics
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Video Default; Behavioral: In-Person Default; Behavioral: Active Choice

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1481
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • West Midlands
    • Coventry, West Midlands, United Kingdom, CV4 7HL
      • Kelly Schmidtke

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:

All participants will:

• be 18 years old or older;
• be resident in the United Kingdom; and
• indicate having been diagnosed with a chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke etc.

Exclusion Criteria:

• be less than 18 years old;
• not be resident in the United Kingdom; and
• not indicate having been diagnosed with a chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke etc.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Video Default; The case and response options participants in this group will be asked to consider is provided below. Imagine that a hospital clinician you have been seeing for over a year tells you that that upon reviewing your patient notes they would like you to attend your next consultation by video. Consider each of the response options below, and select the one that best describes how you would respond to your clinician. A) Yes, I would be happy to attend a video consultation. B) If possible, I would rather attend the appointment in person.	Behavioral: Video Default; The case and response options participants in this group will be asked to consider is provided below. Imagine that a hospital clinician you have been seeing for over a year tells you that that upon reviewing your patient notes they would like you to attend your next consultation by video. Consider each of the response options below, and select the one that best describes how you would respond to your clinician. A) Yes, I would be happy to attend a video consultation. B) If possible, I would rather attend the appointment in person.
Experimental: In-Person Default; The case and response options participants in this group will be asked to consider is provided below. Imagine that a hospital clinician you have been seeing for over a year tells you that that upon reviewing your patient notes they would like you to attend your next consultation in person. Consider each of the response options below, and select the one that best describes how you would respond to your clinician. A) Yes, I would be happy to attend an in-person consultation. B) If possible, I would rather attend the appointment by video.	Behavioral: In-Person Default; The case and response options participants in this group will be asked to consider is provided below. Imagine that a hospital clinician you have been seeing for over a year tells you that that upon reviewing your patient notes they would like you to attend your next consultation in person. Consider each of the response options below, and select the one that best describes how you would respond to your clinician. A) Yes, I would be happy to attend an in-person consultation. B) If possible, I would rather attend the appointment by video.
Experimental: Active Choice; The case and response options participants in this group will be asked to consider is provided below. Imagine that a hospital clinician you have been seeing for over a year tells you that that upon reviewing your patient notes they would like you to attend a consultation by video or in person. Consider each of the response options below, and select the one that best describes how you would respond to your clinician. A) I would prefer a video consultation. B) I would prefer an in-person consultation.	Behavioral: Active Choice; The case and response options participants in this group will be asked to consider is provided below. Imagine that a hospital clinician you have been seeing for over a year tells you that that upon reviewing your patient notes they would like you to attend a consultation by video or in person. Consider each of the response options below, and select the one that best describes how you would respond to your clinician. A) I would prefer a video consultation. B) I would prefer an in-person consultation.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Response to the outpatient invitation	Participants responses will indicate whether they would prefer a video or in-person appointment.	One day

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Warwick
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Kelly A Schmidtke, PhD, University of Warwick

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 11, 2020
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 31, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): October 31, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 24, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 28, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): September 2, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 5, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 3, 2020
• Last Verified: November 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Disease Attributes; Chronic Disease
• Other Study ID Numbers: BSREC 110/19-20

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: The anonymised individual level data may be made available upon reasonable request within 10 years of the project being published in an academic jourhnal or may be published with an article if required by the journal.

Drug and device information, study documents

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