Evaluation and Development of Falls Prevention and Management in the Community for Older Adults

Evaluation and Development of Falls Prevention and Management in the Community of Central and North of Singapore for Older Adults

This study investigates how differently-framed messages can affect people's attitude towards falls risk and prevention in older adults. This study considers the potentiality of adult children acting as change agents in influencing parents in falls prevention.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Falls Prevention; Falls Risk
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: No Message Given; Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Older Adults; Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Older Adults; Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Younger Adults; Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Younger Adults

Detailed Description

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) will be conducted to test the effectiveness of two messaging types (positively vs negatively framed) via two target audiences (older vs younger adults).

The RCT evaluates the effectiveness of the differently-framed messages delivered to older and younger adults in affecting people's attitude toward falls risk and motivating them to learn about preventing falls. Also, the potential of adult children acting as change agents to positively influence parents in preventing falls is explored.

Older and younger adults who are eligible to participate in this study are randomly given one message. For older adults, the objective is to study which message is more effective in affecting their attitude towards falls risk and motivating them to learn about preventing falls. For younger adults, the aim is to understand which message is more effective in motivating them to learn about preventing falls for their parents.

Hypotheses:

H1: The negatively framed message is more effective than the positively framed counterpart in motivating older adults to find out about preventing falls. However, this effect decreases as the socioeconomic status decreases.

H2: The negatively framed message is more effective than the positively framed counterpart in motivating younger adults to find out about preventing falls.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Anticipated): 1200
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Su-Chin Hsu, PhD; Phone Number: +6566011672; Email: schsu@nus.edu.sg
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Lianjun Li, PhD; Phone Number: +6566011672; Email: lianjun.li@nus.edu.sg

Study Locations

• Singapore
  • Singapore, Singapore
    • Recruiting
    • National University of Singapore
    • Contact: Su-Chin Hsu; Phone Number: +6566011672; Email: schsu@nus.edu.sg

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 30 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Singaporean or Permanent Residents (PRs)
• Read/speak English, Mandarin, or Malay
• Either age 60 years old and above, walk independently with or without assistive devices, have no self-reported/detected dementia or cognitive impairments or age between 30 and 59 years old and have either one of the parents age 60 years old and above who walk independently with or without assistive devices

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not Singaporean or PRs
• Do not read/speak English, Chinese, and Malay
• Age 29 years old and below
• Cannot walk independently with and without assistive devices
• Have self-reported/detected dementia or cognitive impairments

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

6

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Control - Older Adults; Participants age 60 years old or above.	Behavioral: No Message Given; Participants in this arm are not given any intervention.
Experimental: Positive - Older Adults; Participants age 60 years old or above.	Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Older Adults; Participants in this arm are given a positively framed message from an older adult's point of view.
Experimental: Negative - Older Adults; Participants age 60 years old or above.	Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Older Adults; Participants in this arm are given a negatively framed message from an older adult's point of view.
Experimental: Control - Younger Adults; Participants age between 30 and 59 years old.	Behavioral: No Message Given; Participants in this arm are not given any intervention.
Experimental: Positive - Younger Adults; Participants age between 30 and 59 years old.	Behavioral: Positive Message Given - Younger Adults; Participants in this arm are given a positively framed message from an adult child's point of view.
Experimental: Negative - Younger Adults; Participants age between 30 and 59 years old.	Behavioral: Negative Message Given - Younger Adults; Participants in this arm are given a negatively framed message from an adult child's point of view.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
How much does the participant want to find out about preventing falls for himself/herself or his/her father/mother?	This is a scale variable ranging from 1 to 9, which is "1" if not at all and "9" if a lot	After being given a message during the survey, an average of 2 minutes

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Whether the participant or the participant's father/mother has fallen in the past 12 months	This is a categorical variable, which is "Yes" if the participant or the participant's father/mother has fallen in the past 12 months, "No" if not, and "Do not know" if the participant does not know whether his/her father/mother has fallen in the past 12 months	After being given a message during the survey, an average of 2 minutes
Whether the participant or the participant's father/mother is concerned about falling	This is a categorical variable, which is "Very concerned" if the participant or the participant's father/mother is very concerned about falling, "Slightly concerned" if s/he is slightly concerned about falling, "Not concerned" if s/he is not concerned about falling, and "Do not know" if the participant does not know whether his/her father/mother is concerned about falling	After being given a message during the survey, an average of 2 minutes
Whether the participant or the participant's father/mother feels like s/he is going to fall when standing or walking	This is a categorical variable, which is "Always" if the participant or the participant's father/mother always feels like s/he is going to fall when standing or walking, "Sometimes" if s/he sometimes feels like s/he is going to fall when standing or walking, "Never" if s/he never feels like s/he is going to fall when standing or walking, and "Do not know" if the participant does not know whether his/her father/mother feels like s/he is going to fall when standing or walking	After being given a message during the survey, an average of 2 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: National University, Singapore
• Investigators: Study Director: Noah Lim, PhD, The Global Asia Institute, The National University of Singapore; Principal Investigator: Tuo-Yu Chen, PhD, Master Program in Global Health and Development, Taipei Medical University; Principal Investigator: Su-Chin Hsu, PhD, The Global Asia Institute, The National University of Singapore; Principal Investigator: Lianjun Li, PhD, The Global Asia Institute, The National University of Singapore; Principal Investigator: Catherine Yeung, PhD, Department of Marketing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Dickinson A, Machen I, Horton K, Jain D, Maddex T, Cove J. Fall prevention in the community: what older people say they need. Br J Community Nurs. 2011 Apr;16(4):174-80.
• Liu X, Shuster MM, Mikels JA, Stine-Morrow EAL. Doing What Makes You Happy: Health Message Framing for Younger and Older Adults. Exp Aging Res. 2019 Jul-Sep;45(4):293-305. doi: 10.1080/0361073X.2019.1627491. Epub 2019 Jun 12.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): December 10, 2021
• Primary Completion (Anticipated): September 30, 2022
• Study Completion (Anticipated): September 30, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 7, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 15, 2022
• First Posted (Actual): January 20, 2022

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 14, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 6, 2022
• Last Verified: April 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: NUS-IRB-2020-024

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