Self-reported patient wellness and clinical measures
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Are patients' views on changes in their health and wellness predictive of clinical deterioration in their condition?
IRAS ID
226292
Contact name
Abigail Albutt
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Leeds, Faculty Head of Research Suppot
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
It is increasingly recognised that patients can make important contributions towards their safety in hospital and initiatives have encouraged patient involvement in patient safety. One area of patient safety that might benefit from the involvement of patients is improving the early detection of clinical deterioration in hospital. Although measures exist to improve early recognition and response to patient deterioration, some deteriorating patients continue to go unrecognised. It’s intuitive to think that patients and their relatives have knowledge of the patient and their norms, and may sense if the patient’s condition is worsening but there is a lack of empirical evidence investigating this topic. Questions that ask patients for their views on changes in their health and wellness have been developed with patients and health professionals. In a pilot study, patients were asked these ‘patient wellness questions’ during routine observations over a number of days. Patients and staff gave their feedback on whether the questions were understandable. We have established that patients can give information about their wellness during observation using the ‘patient wellness questions’. In the current study, healthcare assistants who do patient observations will ask patients the patient wellness questions as part of routine observation and record their responses.
Healthcare assistants working on wards in the experimental group will take part in a session where motivational behaviour change techniques will be used to motivate them to ask patients the patient wellness questions and record their responses. We will explore whether attending the motivational session increases the number of patient wellness responses recorded compared to the control group. Furthermore, we will investigate whether patients’ responses to the ‘patient wellness questions’ (their patient wellness scores) are associated with clinical measures (early warning scores) to provide novel information to indicate a patient is deteriorating or will seriously deteriorate. An early warning score is a score that is calculated from the measurement of patients’ vital signs eg. blood pressure. Early warning scores are calculated by healthcare assistants during routine observations of the patient approximately every 4 hours. Patients in the study will not be aware of their early warning score.
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/YH/0210
Date of REC Opinion
2 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion