Readiness to Change and the Implementation of Home Modifications for Adults Over 60

January 26, 2026 updated by: Victoria Priganc, University of Vermont
This study is focused on home modifications and the changes that older adults may experience while aging. We are conducting this study to better understand how people feel about making changes to their homes or utilizing equipment to assist with home tasks.

Study Overview

Status

Not yet recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Understanding people's readiness for change could be used as a predictor of an older adult's willingness to implement home modifications to improve aging in place and safety. Adults benefit from home modifications as they age but are often hesitant to make these changes despite support from occupational therapists and other healthcare initiatives. Some benefits of home modifications include reduced fall risk and depression, and increased independence in activities of daily living. The readiness to change scale has been used in multiple areas of older adult research to understand health behavior change including physical activity, driving cessation, and functional activities. We are therefore investigating what relationship lies between readiness to change scale, methods of delivering education around the importance of home modifications, and adoption of home modifications in older adults.

Subjects 60 or older who are living independently will be recruited through the investigator's network of clinical providers, the Vermont Older Adult Research Registry, and through various community organizations that address the needs of older adults.

Subjects will be contacted via phone or in-person. Inclusion/exclusion criteria will be discussed with those expressing an interest in the study. Subjects that meet the inclusion exclusion criteria will be invited to participate in the study.

  • Obtaining consent for subjects via phone recruitment: For those subjects who express an interest via a phone call, a RedCap link will be sent via email. The RedCap link will have the consent form and at the end, a place for an electronic signature. This phone call and review of consent form will be conducted by the research team.
  • Obtaining consent for subjects via in-person: For those subjects who express an interest via an in-person meeting, a member of the research team will review the consent form and a consent signature will be gathered after review of the study.

Once subjects consent to participate in the study, subjects will be randomly assigned using a random number generator to the face-to-face group or the online group.

Face-to-face group: Once assigned, subjects will be invited to the face-to-face session via three avenues. 1) the research team can meet the individual in their home, 2) the subject can come to the UVM Occupational Therapy Smart Apartment lab, 3) the subject can come to a community center. Sessions in the UVM Occupational Therapy Smart Apartment lab and the community centers may be group sessions or individual sessions. To start the session, subjects will complete a demographic intake form, the readiness to change scale, and a home modification survey. These surveys will be paper surveys. Next, the research team will offer a hands-on educational session describing the benefits of home modifications and allowing participants to trial different devices. Following the hands-on education session, subjects will be asked to again complete the readiness to change scale and the home modification survey. The entire time commitment will be approximately 1-hour.

Online group: Once assigned, subjects will be sent a Qualtrics link that contains the demographic intake form, the readiness to change scale, and home modification survey. These surveys will be done on-line via Qualtrics. Subjects will be asked to complete the initial paperwork within 7 business days of consenting to participate in the study. The research team will reach out to the participants after 7 days to ensure the initial paperwork has been completed. Once the intake form and surveys have been completed, a zoom meeting will be set up to explain how they can view the educational session and to talk about some challenges they have in their homes. Subjects will then be given a link to an educational session on a private YouTube channel. They can watch the educational session at a time of their convenience, but will be asked to complete it within 10-14 business days from completing the initial intake form and surveys. The educational video should take no longer than 30-minutes to watch. Once completed, they will be encouraged to reach out to the research team with questions. The researchers will reach out at 10-14 business days to see if there are any questions or if they have completed the on-line educational session. At that point, participants will be sent another Qualtrics link to complete the post-surveys (readiness to change scale and home modification survey).

All subjects regardless of group assignment will be followed-up via a phone call 3-months later to identify if any modifications have been implemented. The same phone script will be used and all data gathered from the 3-month follow-up will be gathered via a phone call.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

40

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 Contact

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

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adults over 60
  • Living independently
  • Able to read, speak, understand English

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Individuals unable to legal represent themselves

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

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Other: face-to-face education
This group will receive face-to-face education regarding home modifications.
Other: Face-to-face educational session
Subjects will receive face-to-face education regarding different home modifications.
Other: on-line education
This group will receive on-line education regarding home modifications.
Other: On-line educational session
Subjects will watch an on-line video describing different home modifications.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Readiness to change scale
Time Frame: From enrollment to the end of treatment at 1 day - 10 days.
From enrollment to the end of treatment at 1 day - 10 days.

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

University of Vermont

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 (Estimated)

January 28, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 30, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 30, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 26, 2026

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 26, 2026

First Posted (Actual)

February 3, 2026

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

February 3, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 26, 2026

Last Verified

January 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IRB00003816

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

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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