Virtual Guided Tour of the MMFA for Prevention of Social Isolation (VGV)

A 3-month Cycle of Weekly Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Guided Tours Oto Promote Social Inclusion, Well-being, Quality of Life and Health in Older Community Members Experiencing Social Isolation

It has previously been reported that participatory art-based activities may improve social inclusion, well-being, quality of life and health condition. Findings from the investigator's first study seem to confirm that the MMFA participatory art-based activity may improve well-being, quality of life and health condition in older community dwellers. However, these studies were performed before the COVID-19 crisis and were guided tours performed at the MMFA. A pilot study on virtual guided tour has been performed during COVID-19 pandemic (spring 2021). There is a need to confirm benefits with a randomized clinical trial.

The hypothesize for this study is that a 3-month cycle of virtual weekly MMFA tours may induce changes in social isolation, well-being, quality of life and health condition (i.e., reduction of frailty) in older community dwellers. Because there is a positive correlation between severity of frailty and the occurrence of undesirable events like Emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations, the investigator hypothesizes that virtual guided tours may decrease the frequency of ED visits and hospitalizations.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Quality of Life; Healthy Aging; Well Aging; Social Isolation
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Virtual guided tours

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 128
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Quebec
    • Montréal, Quebec, Canada, H3W 1W5
      • CRIUGM

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 65 years and older (OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• age 65 and over;
• having a low level of social inclusion defined with the 11-item Duke Social Support Index (DSSI) score ≤ 26/3323;
• living in Quebec, at home in an urban area;
• reading, understanding and writing the languages of the recruitment centre (i.e., French or English or Chinese mandarin) because all the questionnaires are available in French, in English and in Chinese mandarin, and because the guides of the museum performing the virtual guided tours speak French and/or English, with a translator in Chinese mandarin.
• Having an Internet access and an electronic device (smartphone, laptop, computer and/or tablet with a functional cam) at the participant's place of living as the repetitive assessments for this study will be performed on the web platform of the CRIUGM, and the guided tours will be virtual.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Cannot participate to a clinical trial at the same time, to avoid interferences with the outcomes of the studied intervention in this protocol.
• Having participated to a participatory art-based activity of the MMFA during the 3 month-period before the recruitment. A participation to any other museum activities may be assimilate to an intervention. As it could interfere with our outcomes, participants are not allowed to participate to any other museum activity, in any museum, during their 3-month participation. We previously showed that museum activities may change the outcomes studied in this study.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: OTHER
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: SINGLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Group 1; Participants will participate to the 3-month cycle of virtual guided tour of the MMFA and will complete assessments at M0 and at M3	Other: Virtual guided tours; The intervention is a participatory art-based activity which consists in MMFA virtual guided tours. Each virtual guided tour is performed with a group of 6 to 7 participants. They meet online one time per week for a 30 to 45 min of a guided tour during a 3-month period. Each tour is different and supervised by a MMFA trained guide.
NO_INTERVENTION: Group 2; Participants will not participate to the 3-month cycle of virtual guided tour of the MMFA but will complete assessments at M0 and at M3

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Social isolation	social isolation which will be assessed using the 11-item Duke Social Support Index (DSSI). .The index comprises two subscales: social interaction (i.e., frequency of interactions) and subjective support (i.e., satisfaction with emotional support provided). DSSI score ranges from 11 to 33, increased score indicating higher levels of social insertion. The scores of the 11 items are combined and categorized as low-fair (score ≤26), high (score 27-29) and very high (score 30-33). We will use as primary outcome the mean score of 11-item DSSI and its distribution in three categories.	3 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Frailty	The frailty which will be assessed using the CRIUGM Self-AdMinistered questionnaire (CESAM). The CESAM is composed of a maximum of 28 items exploring age, sex, nutrition, place of life, social resources, number of drugs taken on a daily basis, memory complaint, mood and general feeling, fatigue, activities of daily living scale, instrumental activities of daily living scale, physical activity and history of previous falls. Items correspond to a question in closed-ended format (i.e., yes or no, or calling for a specific answer). The CESAM provides two complementary information: 1) A global score of frailty ranged from 0 (i.e., best health and functional condition) to 18 (i.e., worse health and functional condition) and 2) Categorized health condition in four levels (vigorous with a score between 0 and 3, mild frailty with a score between 4 and 7, moderate frailty with a score bet	3 months
socio-geriatric vulnerability	socio-geriatric vulnerability will be assessed using the digital form of a self-administered questionnaire ESOGER. The ESOGER is composed of a maximum of 15 questions exploring the COVID risk, the COVID past history, COVID vaccination the social isolation risk due to COVID (access to food, home support and healthcare, contact with external persons, anxiety). Items correspond to a question in closed-ended format (i.e., yes or no, or calling for a specific answer). Incident planned and unplanned visits to physicians, Emergency Department (ED) and hospitalization during the 3-month cycle of virtual weekly MMFA tours will be only recorded at the end of the cycle.	3 months
Well-being	Well-being will be assessed using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) self-questionnaire. WEMWBS is a validated questionnaire composed by 14 positively worded item scale with five response categories. It covers most aspects of positive mental health (positive thoughts and feelings).	3 months
quality of life	quality of life will be assessed using the EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D). This test is a standardized measure of health status developed by the EuroQol Group to provide a simple, generic measure of health for clinical and economic appraisal. It provides a simple descriptive profile and a single index value for health status. EQ-5D is composed of two parts: a questionnaire of five questions with score per question ranged from 1 (i.e., no issue) to 5 (i.e., worse issue),; and a visual analogic scale of how good or bad participant health was. This scale is numbered from 0 (i.e., worse health participant can imagine) to 100 (i.e., best health participant can imagine).	3 months
compliance	compliance to the MMFA visits will be assessed by counting the number of virtual tours completed during the 3-month period of intervention	3 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Centre integre universitaire de sante et de services sociaux du Centre-Sud-de-l'Île-de-Montréal

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Beauchet O, Matskiv J, Galery K, Goossens L, Lafontaine C, Sawchuk K. Benefits of a 3-month cycle of weekly virtual museum tours in community dwelling older adults: Results of a randomized controlled trial. Front Med (Lausanne). 2022 Aug 16;9:969122. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2022.969122. eCollection 2022.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): January 1, 2022
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): June 1, 2022
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): June 1, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 8, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 8, 2021
• First Posted (ACTUAL): September 16, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): February 8, 2023
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 6, 2023
• Last Verified: February 1, 2023

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 2022-1338

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