Driving simulation in patients with heart failure
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Reaction times, driving speed and number of accidents in a driving simulation programme for patients with and without Heart Failure
IRAS ID
220995
Contact name
Daniel Pan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
R&D department, Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
For older people, driving can provide autonomy, mobility and pleasure, especially if they have experienced losses in quality of life in other parts of their lives.
Heart failure affects at least 530,000 people in the UK. Up to 80% of patients over the age of 60 with heart failure suffer some sort of cognitive impairment. Many previous studies have identified the most common impairments to be in memory, attention and response times. These are also aspects we commonly associate with safe driving. Patients with heart failure often ask doctors in clinic if they should continue to drive. No studies have looked at whether driving performance changes in patients with heart failure.
This study aims to recruit a total of 120 men and women from the heart failure clinic at Castle Hill Hospital. Participants will first be asked to fill in three questionnaires - a previously validated Driving Habits Questionnaire (modified to fit with british driving regulations and with one added item relevant to heart failure), the Mini-Mental State Examination (to assess their cognitive function) and the Patient Health Questionnaire -9 (PHQ-9) to assess if they have any signs of depression. They will then be asked to use a driving simulation on a computer with a connected driving wheel and foot pedals in a research clinic. The driving simulation assesses participants' reaction times to hazards, time taken to drive a lap and counts the number of accidents/crashes they might have. Participants will have 5 minutes opportunity to try the simulation before any measurements are recored. The aim of the study is to see whether these measurements on a simple simulation are different in people with heart failure compared to those who do not have heart failure.
REC name
North East - Tyne & Wear South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/NE/0021
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jan 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion