COVID-19 Germ Defence Implementation [COVID-19] [UPH]
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Primary care implementation of Germ Defence: A digital behaviour change intervention to improve infection control during the COVID-19 pandemic
IRAS ID
287978
Contact name
Jeremy Horwood
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Bristol
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN14602359
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
n/a, n/a
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 9 months, 2 days
Research summary
Recent research into coronavirus has shown that members of the public can play a crucial role in controlling infection outbreaks, by adopting simple behaviours such as handwashing, cleaning surfaces, wearing face-coverings and social distancing. However, it is clear that most people need support to change their behaviour and prevent infection.\n \nThe Germ Defence website was originally developed during the swine ’flu pandemic and trialled in over 20,000 patients. It was shown to reduce the number and severity of infections of both the people who used it and members of their households (Little et al, 2015). Germ Defence has now been updated for use during the COVID-19 pandemic. The updated website helps users with:\n\n- planning for how to isolate an infected household member\n- personalised goal-setting to increase a range of infection control behaviours\n- changing their home environment to support new habits\n- problem-solving to overcome any barriers. \n\nThis project will consider the effects of promoting the Germ Defence website via GP practices on rates of respiratory infection including COVID-19 and seasonal ‘flu. We will contact every GP practice in England and ask them to share a link to the Germ Defence website with their adult patients. Half of the practices (known the ’intervention arm’ of the trial) will be randomly chosen to be contacted in Autumn 2020 and asked to immediately send out the Germ Defence link to their patients whilst the other half (known as the ’usual care arm’ of the trial) will be contacted and asked to send out the Germ Defence link in February 2021. We will assess usage of Germ Defence from anonymous data stored on its website. We will then use routinely collected NHS data to examine whether infection rates are lower in GP practices that sent Germ Defence to their patients as requested. [Study relying on COPI notice]
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Leeds West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/YH/0261
Date of REC Opinion
14 Aug 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion