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Trial registered on ANZCTR


Registration number
ACTRN12614000457640
Ethics application status
Approved
Date submitted
3/03/2014
Date registered
1/05/2014
Date last updated
14/05/2018
Type of registration
Prospectively registered

Titles & IDs
Public title
Getting to the CORE: testing a co-design technique to optimise psychosocial recovery outcomes for people affected by mental illness in the community mental health setting.
Scientific title
The CORE Study: a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial to test a co-design technique to optimise psychosocial recovery outcomes for people affected by mental illness in the community mental health setting.
Secondary ID [1] 284082 0
Nil
Universal Trial Number (UTN)
U1111-1153-2605
Trial acronym
CORE
Linked study record

Health condition
Health condition(s) or problem(s) studied:
Bipolar Disorder 291659 0
Anxiety Disorders 291660 0
Major Depressive Disorders 291661 0
Psychotic Disorders 291662 0
Schizophrenia 291663 0
Personality Disorders 291664 0
Panic Disorders 291665 0
Condition category
Condition code
Mental Health 291485 291485 0 0
Depression
Mental Health 291487 291487 0 0
Schizophrenia
Mental Health 292137 292137 0 0
Psychosis and personality disorders

Intervention/exposure
Study type
Interventional
Description of intervention(s) / exposure
Mental Health Experience Co-design (MH ECO) is a structured process for service users (consumers), carers and mental health staff to come together to identify improvements to service planning and delivery and co-design the solutions to these improvements. The process is facilitated by trained researchers experienced in the use of co-design methods.

The intervention will be implemented over nine months from 2014-2017 at up to eleven participating mental health teams (clusters). There are two main stages to MH ECO. Stage one is information gathering through an open ended computer assisted telephone interview (CATI) and focus groups and face to face interviews. Stage two is a facilitated co-design process where collaboration and co-design groups are established and meet over five months..

The telephone interview is undertaken over six weeks with consumers and carers at each mental health team to identify the positive and negative experiences of services. Interviews take up to one hour to complete. Each team will have up to 30 consumers and 30 carers recruited. All 30 consumers and 30 carers who express interest will be invited to complete the CATI. Up to three positive and three negative touch points (experiences) are discussed in consumer, carer and staff focus groups to gain better understanding. Focus groups are held separately, for up to two hours, with 8-10 people participating in these.

The second stage involves the co-design process. Consumers, carers and staff who express interest in the co-design process receive two training sessions over two weeks to build skills and confidence for working in group settings. Training sessions are up to two hours each. Following the completion of training sessions, a collaboration group (8-10 people in each cluster) is established comprised of consumers, carers and staff members.. The collaboration group meets first (for up to two hours) to set objectives for achieving some changes around the identified negative touch points.

This is followed by the establishment of up to three co-design groups (8-10 people in each cluster - there is one co-design group for each of the negative touch points). Co-design groups meet three times for up to two hours. Session one explores the negative touch point to brainstorm ideas for change, session two focuses in on what will change and session three is the development of an action plan for implementation.

The action plan is returned to the second collaboration group meeting for implementation in month six. A month one implementation period is scheduled where there is no contact with any clusters.
Intervention code [1] 288775 0
Other interventions
Comparator / control treatment
The stepped wedge design means that the clusters not in receipt of the intervention act as the control group for the study.

The usual care delivered to consumers comprises a comprehensive needs assessment and individual recovery plan developed, individualised support through focus on improving daily living skills, capacity for mental health self–management and social connectedness, and support to access health and human services required through partnership and coordination delivered by key worker.
Control group
Active

Outcomes
Primary outcome [1] 291514 0
Primary Outcome = improved psychosocial recovery (Recovery Assessment Scale - Revised 24 Item RAS-R).
Timepoint [1] 291514 0
9, 18, 27 months after intervention commencement.
Secondary outcome [1] 306939 0
Secondary Outcome = improved mental health and well-being for consumers and carers (EUROHIS - Quality of Life 8 Item Scale).
Timepoint [1] 306939 0
9, 18, 27 months after intervention commencement
Secondary outcome [2] 307094 0
Secondary Outcome = change in staff attitudes to recovery (RSA, Recovery Self Assessment Scale - Provider Version and STARS Staff Attitudes to Recovery Scale).
Timepoint [2] 307094 0
9, 18, 27 months following baseline data collection from staff.

Eligibility
Key inclusion criteria
Consumers: understands and speaks English, is over 16 years of age, attends a program that is part of the Mental Health Community Support Service at the participating service provider, has received a diagnosis of mental illness.

Carers: understands and speaks English, is over 18 years of age, supports someone who attends a program that is part of the Mental Health Community Support Service at the participating service provider.

Staff: work at the mental health service (any time fraction)and are involved in planning and/or the delivery of services related to the Mental Health Community Support Services.
Minimum age
16 Years
Maximum age
64 Years
Sex
Both males and females
Can healthy volunteers participate?
Yes
Key exclusion criteria
Consumers: does not attend a Community Mental Health Support Service attached to the participating Community Health Centre and does not have a mental illness. Does not speak and understand English. Is exhibiting signs of being unwell and unable to provide consent.

Carers: does not care for someone with a mental illness who attends a Community Mental Health Support Service at participating Centre. Is unwell or unable to provide informed consent.

Study design
Purpose of the study
Prevention
Allocation to intervention
Randomised controlled trial
Procedure for enrolling a subject and allocating the treatment (allocation concealment procedures)
Allocation is not concealed.
Methods used to generate the sequence in which subjects will be randomised (sequence generation)
Three clusters stratified by service provider will be allocated to each wave. Initially, the 12 possible combinations of the pair-wise clusters from the three different services were created to ensure that clusters from the same service provider are not allocated to the same wave. Using these pairs, 24 possible sequence allocation combinations of the paired clusters to the three waves were identified (8 combinations of three sets of paired clusters by three different possible starting times). One of the 24 possible sequence allocation combinations will be randomly selected by allocating a random number from the uniform distribution using Stata Statistical Software Packaging to each of the 24 sequence allocation combinations and selecting the sequence allocation with the smallest random number. The random selection of the sequence allocation will be conducted by a statistician blinded to the identity of the clusters and not involved in the assessment or intervention delivery. The pair of clusters and order in which they receive the intervention will be communicated to the trial coordinators. The two clusters allocated to the first wave will be notified of intervention commencement after the initial baseline period is completed. The remaining four clusters will be notified of the intervention commencement at the start of their allocated step/wave. Staff, consumers and carers are not blinded to the intervention but they are blinded to the wave during which they receive it. Research interviewers collecting outcome data will remain blinded to who is in receipt of the intervention.
Masking / blinding
Blinded (masking used)
Who is / are masked / blinded?


The people assessing the outcomes
The people analysing the results/data
Intervention assignment
Other
Other design features
Stepped wedge design cluster randomised controlled trial. Clusters receive the intervention three at a time (in steps) over three waves. Clusters awaiting intervention act as controls.
Phase
Not Applicable
Type of endpoint/s
Efficacy
Statistical methods / analysis
Sample Size Calculation:
Overall, 1008 measurements from 252 consumers (42 per site) at each of the four waves (one for baseline and at each follow up time) from the six clusters will be sufficient to detect an effect size of 0.35 of 1 standard deviation for psycho-social recovery between the intervention and usual care waves with at least 80% power.. Sample size was based on the primary outcome of psycho-social recovery score with the following assumptions: intra-cluster correlation for the outcome of 0.1 and significance level of 5% for a two-sided test, probability that each individual will remain at the site at each wave (0, 0.2 and 0.6) and within-subject correlation of individuals that contributed to at least two consecutive waves (0.2 and 0.7).

The study power was calculated as the proportion among all 2000 simulation runs of two-sided p-values for the estimated fixed treatment effect that reached a nominal value of less than 0.05. Two thousand replications for each set of parameter combinations were sufficient to estimate the power with a margin of error of 1.75%, assuming that the true power was 80%. The simulations were run using R version 3.1.1. Given a fixed sample cluster size, power was the smallest when it was assumed that samples at each time point were independent (that is, probability of remaining at the next wave was zero) and that the study power increased as the probability of remaining at the site and within cluster subject correlation increased. Note the power calculations using the simulation study provided more conservative estimates of the power than the sample size calculations based on the formula provided by Hussey and Hughes. These differences may be due to different derivations of the estimated test statistic. Within the simulation procedure, a t-distribution with Satterthwaite’s approximation for degrees of freedom was employed, whereas the analytical approach suggested by Hussey and Hughes assumes a standard normal distribution for the test statistic which yields less conservative results.

Statistical Data Analysis:

Descriptive statistics will be used to summarise the characteristics of staff, consumers and carers. The participants will be analysed in the group that the cluster was assigned to at each time point. A linear mixed effects model will be used to compare the intervention and usual care periods for continuous outcomes and generalised linear mixed effects model for binary outcomes. The model will include intervention status and time as fixed effects and site and individuals as random effects. Organisational and individual factors strongly correlated with the outcome will also be included as fixed effects in the model. These will include: recovery orientation of services and staff attitudes to recovery at baseline, age, gender, education level, work status, quality of life, medication and hospitalisation. The estimated intervention effect will be reported as mean outcome difference for continuous outcomes and odds ratio for binary outcomes between study groups, with respective 95% confidence intervals and p-values. A secondary analysis will investigate an interaction effect between intervention and time. Costs of the delivery of the intervention will be recorded but no economic evaluation will be undertaken. An intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis strategy will be used. Every effort will be made to minimise missing outcome data at each wave and reasons individuals are lost to follow-up will be recorded. Sensitivity analyses will be conducted to assess the robustness of the missing data assumption made in the primary analysis. Analysis will be conducted using Stata software package 13.

Recruitment
Recruitment status
Active, not recruiting
Date of first participant enrolment
Anticipated
Actual
Date of last participant enrolment
Anticipated
Actual
Date of last data collection
Anticipated
Actual
Sample size
Target
Accrual to date
Final
Recruitment in Australia
Recruitment state(s)
VIC
Recruitment postcode(s) [1] 7836 0
3689 - Wodonga
Recruitment postcode(s) [2] 7838 0
3011 - Footscray
Recruitment postcode(s) [3] 7839 0
3066 - Collingwood
Recruitment postcode(s) [4] 7842 0
3047 - Broadmeadows
Recruitment postcode(s) [5] 13552 0
3134 - Ringwood
Recruitment postcode(s) [6] 13553 0
3030 - Werribee
Recruitment postcode(s) [7] 13554 0
3337 - Melton
Recruitment postcode(s) [8] 13555 0
3931 - Mornington
Recruitment postcode(s) [9] 13556 0
3676 - Wangaratta
Recruitment postcode(s) [10] 13557 0
3084 - Rosanna
Recruitment postcode(s) [11] 13558 0
3020 - Sunshine
Recruitment postcode(s) [12] 13559 0
3128 - Box Hill
Recruitment postcode(s) [13] 13560 0
3140 - Lilydale

Funding & Sponsors
Funding source category [1] 288765 0
Government body
Name [1] 288765 0
Mental Illness Research Fund
Country [1] 288765 0
Australia
Funding source category [2] 288766 0
Government body
Name [2] 288766 0
Psychiatric Illness and Intellectual Disability Donations Trust Fund
Country [2] 288766 0
Australia
Primary sponsor type
University
Name
The University of Melbourne
Address
The Department of General Practice
Melbourne Medical School
Faculty of Dentistry, Medicine and Health Sciences
200 Berkeley Street
Carlton Vic 3053
Country
Australia
Secondary sponsor category [1] 287463 0
None
Name [1] 287463 0
Address [1] 287463 0
Country [1] 287463 0

Ethics approval
Ethics application status
Approved
Ethics committee name [1] 290605 0
The University of Melbourne
Ethics committee address [1] 290605 0
Ethics committee country [1] 290605 0
Australia
Date submitted for ethics approval [1] 290605 0
19/02/2014
Approval date [1] 290605 0
21/03/2014
Ethics approval number [1] 290605 0
1340299.13

Summary
Brief summary
Trial website
Trial related presentations / publications
Public notes
Attachments [1] 1769 1769 0 0
/AnzctrAttachments/365787-CORE data analysis plan.pdf (Supplementary information)

Contacts
Principal investigator
Name 46206 0
Dr Victoria Jane Palmer
Address 46206 0
The Department of General Practice, Melbourne Medical School, Faculty of Medicine Dentistry and Health Sciences, 200 Berkeley Street, Carlton Victoria 3053
Country 46206 0
Australia
Phone 46206 0
+61 3 83 44 4987
Fax 46206 0
Email 46206 0
Contact person for public queries
Name 46207 0
Kali Godbee
Address 46207 0
The Department of General Practice, Melbourne Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne, 200 Berkeley Street Carlton, Victoria 3053
Country 46207 0
Australia
Phone 46207 0
+61 3 9035 7480
Fax 46207 0
Email 46207 0
Contact person for scientific queries
Name 46208 0
Victoria Palmer
Address 46208 0
The Department of General Practice, Melbourne Medical School, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne, 200 Berkeley Street, Carlton Victoria 3053.
Country 46208 0
Australia
Phone 46208 0
+61 3 83 44 4987
Fax 46208 0
Email 46208 0

No information has been provided regarding IPD availability


What supporting documents are/will be available?

No Supporting Document Provided



Results publications and other study-related documents

Documents added manually
TypeIs Peer Reviewed?DOICitations or Other DetailsAttachment
Plain language summaryNo Trial outcomes currently unavailable while outcome... [More Details]
Other filesNo Currently unavailable until peer review is complet... [More Details]

Documents added automatically
SourceTitleYear of PublicationDOI
EmbaseThe CORE study protocol: A stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial to test a co-design technique to optimise psychosocial recovery outcomes for people affected by mental illness in the community mental health setting.2015https://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006688
EmbaseAdvancing engagement methods for trials: The CORE study relational model of engagement for a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial of experience-based co-design for people living with severe mental illnesses.2017https://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13063-017-1878-7
N.B. These documents automatically identified may not have been verified by the study sponsor.