Interreg Diabetes CPM: Unscheduled Care in Diabetes - Inpatient Study

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Interreg Centre for Personalised Medicine: Unscheduled Care in Diabetes Study 2: Inpatient Study

  • IRAS ID

    253037

  • Contact name

    Sandra MacRury

  • Contact email

    sandra.macrury@uhi.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of the Highlands and Islands

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    2 years, 6 months, 1 days

  • Research summary

    Many people with diabetes have difficulty maintaining healthy blood sugar levels, which can lead to a number of significant health consequences. This can result in the need for unscheduled care (UC), such as needing an urgent GP or out-of-hours appointment, attending accident and emergency (A&E) departments, calling paramedic services and/or being admitted to hospital.

    This study makes up one arm of a larger study to reduce UC in people with diabetes, consisting of two streams of work: a community based study to reduce the number of people with diabetes admitted to hospital; and a hospital based study (this study) to reduce the length of stay (LoS) for people with diabetes who are admitted as inpatients.

    Research has consistently shown that people with diabetes are much more likely to be admitted to hospital than people without diabetes and are likely to stay admitted for significantly longer. This study aims to evaluate the use of continuous glucose monitoring systems (CGMS), devices that an individual wears to allow for constant reading of blood sugar levels, to reduce LoS. The study will consist of 2 phases: an analysis of hospital blood glucose data to identify wards to target the intervention (Phase 1); and an intervention study (Phase 2) consisting of a preliminary feasibility test (Part A), a randomised controlled trail (Part B) and an evaluative interview study (Part C).

    The study will consist of three study sites in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. This application will focus on the Northern Ireland and Scotland as this is a UK ethics application. Separate relevant ethics applications will be conducted for the Republic of Ireland.

  • REC name

    North of Scotland Research Ethics Committee 2

  • REC reference

    19/NS/0040

  • Date of REC Opinion

    15 Mar 2019

  • REC opinion

    Unfavourable Opinion