VBI:Piloting Research Methods
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Very Brief Interventions (VBI): A Pilot study to assess the feasibility of the methods proposed to conduct a randomised controlled trial to measure the efficacy of a VBI delivered during routine vascular health checks in Primary Care
IRAS ID
132087
Contact name
Stephen Sutton
Contact email
Research summary
Very Brief Interventions (VBI): Piloting research methods proposed for a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT)
This pilot study forms part of a large programme of on-going research which aims to develop and evaluate VBIs to increase physical activity (PA).
GP practices are conducting Health Checks, in which everyone between 40 and 74 years is invited for an assessment of their risk of developing vascular disease (e.g. heart disease and stroke). PA can delay or prevent the onset of such diseases therefore the Health Checks are an ideal opportunity to deliver a VBI to promote PA to large numbers of people.
Work is currently being done to find the “best-bet” intervention (i.e. the one that is shown to be the most effective in promoting PA), which will be taken into a large RCT to measure its effectiveness. This trial will take place in GP practices across the East of England and we want to make sure that the methods we use and the number of people who take part are robust enough to answer our research questions. The purpose of this study therefore is to enable us to make informed decisions on how to run this trial.
We will recruit 4 GP surgeries and randomise (allocate by chance) willing participants to the study condition under test. All the health check consultations will be recorded so that we can monitor the PA advice given. We will also interview participants immediately afterwards to obtain feedback from their perspective. A small number of participants will be asked to wear a device around their waist to measure movement immediately before and 4 weeks after their health check. At the end of the recruitment phase we will interview the health care professionals doing the health checks to obtain feedback on the feasibility of each study design.REC name
East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/EE/0361
Date of REC Opinion
25 Sep 2013
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion