Improving End-of-life Care by Continuing Medical Education and Electronic Decision Making Support for General Practitioners

Not Applicable

Withdrawn

• Conditions: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease; Metastatic Cancer
• Interventions: Other: continuing medical education and electronic decision support; Other: education and electronic support

• Registration Number: NCT02050256
• Lead Sponsor: University of Aarhus

Brief Summary

Background: Optimizing the basic palliative care has been shown beneficial to patients in end-of-life care, the general practitioner (GP) having a pivotal role in the health care system, providing comprehensive and continued medical care.

The aim of the study is to investigate the effect of a complex intervention in general practice on GPs' awareness of and confidence in providing end-of-life care.

Method: A follow-up study among 404 general practices in Central Denmark Region. The participating general practices will get the opportunity to receive education in palliative care and access to an electronic support, which provides advice on palliative care and an overview of the palliative population in each medical practice. The education and the support will focus on patients suffering from either metastatic cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (GOLD stage 4).

The end-of-life care delivered by the GPs to their deceased patients will be analysed, based on questionnaires to GPs and register data related to the deceased patients before and after the intervention, .

Primary outcomes: Place of death of deceased patients, time spent at home, and number of hospital admissions in the last three months of the patients' lives.

Secondary outcomes: Number and kinds of contacts between GPs and patients, use of relevant medicine and of the 'Safety Box'. Finally GPs' confidence concerning palliative care will be assessed in questionnaires.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2013-12
• Study First Submitted: 2013-12-18
• Study First Submitted QC: 2014-01-28
• Study First Posted: 2014-01-30
• Study Start: 2014-02
• Primary Completion: 2014-12
• Study Completion: 2014-12
• Last Update Submitted: 2014-12-10
• Last Update Posted: 2014-12-11

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: WITHDRAWN
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: Not specified

Inclusion Criteria

Working as General Practitioner in the Central Region of Denmark in 2013 and onwards

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Exclusion Criteria

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Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
general practioner	continuing medical education and electronic decision support	-
general practioner	education and electronic support	-

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Place of death of deceased patients	1 year	Looking at the proportion of General practitioners patients dying at home in the year following the continuing medical education meeting
time spent at home the last three months of the deceased patients lives	3 months	Looking at all the deceased patients in one year following the continuing medical education meeting
Numbers of hospital admission the last three months of the deceased patients lives	3 months	Looking at all the deceased patients in one year following the continuing medical education meeting

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
and kinds of contacts between GPs and patients in the last three months of the deceased patients lives	three months
use of relevant medicine and of the 'Safety Box' in the last three months of the deceased patients lives	three months
GPs' confidence concerning palliative care	14 months	assessed using questionnaire before and after the intervention

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Aarhus University; 🇩🇰 Aarhus, Denmark