About this trial
The goal of this clinical trial is to evaluate the impact of SCThrive (a behavioral self-management intervention) on patient activation, self-management behaviors, daily functioning, and emergency room visits in 260 adolescents and young adults with sickle cell disease (SCD) ages 13-21 receiving care at 1 of 4 pediatric SCD clinics.
The main question\[s\]it aims to answer are:
* Does SCThrive improve patient activation? * Does SCThrive improve self-management behaviors, daily functioning, and decrease emergency room visits? * Are any improvements maintained 3 months after treatment?
Participants will complete self-management related surveys before, after, and 3 months following their participation in an 8- week, virtual group intervention with an accompanying mobile app (SCThrive).
Researchers will compare outcomes for participants who receive SCThrive and participants who receive uniform standard care (SCHealthED which = standard of care plus SCD educational text messages) to see if there are differences in patient activation, self-management behaviors, daily functioning, and emergency room visits.
Eligibility criteria
This trial does not accept healthy volunteersQualifiers
Patient of a participating SCD Clinic
Confirmed diagnosis of SCD
13-21 years of age
Disqualifiers
Another chronic disease (which would complicate measurement of patient activation)
Non-English-speaking
Cognitive or psychiatric disorder that the physician or study therapists believe would impair study participation.
Trial design
Parallel
Treatments tested in this trial
SCThrive
BehavioralSCThrive is a virtual, 8-week, virtual group-based, behavioral self-management intervention that includes daily use of a companion mobile app.
SCHealthED
Other interventionStandard of care plus 7 SCD educational text messages to ensure education is uniform across sites
Treatment groups
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
Patient Activation
Self-reported patient activation as measured by the Patient Activation Measure -13 (PAM-13), which is a 13 item measure on skills, knowledge, confidence and readiness for self-management developed by Hibbard et al., 2005. Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale of 1 = "Disagree Strongly" to 3 = "Strongly Agree." Raw scores range from 13 to 52 and are converted to scores that range from 0 to 100. This score was then divided into four levels of activation, which reflect a developmental progression from being passive with regard to one's health to being proactive: Level 1 (score of 0.0 - 47.0), Level 2 (47.1 - 55.1), Level 3 (55.2 - 72.4), and Level 4 (72.5 - 100). Higher scores indicate more behavioral activation.
Secondary outcomes
Self-Management Behaviors
self-reported self-management behaviors as measured by the Transition Readiness Assessment Questionnaire - 6 (TRAQ-6), which is a well-validated 20-item questionnaire that measures the skills needed to manage a chronic condition independently. Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale of 1 = "No, I do not know how" to 5 = "Yes, I always do this when I need to" and divided into 5 subscales: Managing Medication, Appointment Keeping, Tracking Health Issues, Talking with Providers, and Managing Daily Activities. Overall and subscale scores are calculated by averaging the scores of answered items. Mean scores range from 1 to 5 with higher scores indicating better self-management.
Daily Functioning
The Functional Disability Inventory is a self-report measure of limitations in children's physical and psychosocial functioning due to their physical health. The instrument consists of 15 items concerning activity limitations due to "being sick or not feeling well" during the past 2 weeks. Total scores ranging from 0 to 60 are computed by summing the ratings for each of the 15 items on the FDI. Higher scores indicate greater perceived functional disability.
Emergency Room (ER) Visits
number of emergency room visits
Self-Management Skills
Participants complete the UNC TRxANSITION Scale, an interview administered by trained independent evaluators to measure the skills of youth with chronic conditions. For this study, we will administer 6 of the 10 possible subscales: Type of Chronic Health Condition, Medications, Adherence, Nutrition, Self-Management Skills, and New Health Care Providers. Each item is scored individually as either 1 (adequate knowledge/skill mastery), 0.5 (some knowledge/skill attainment), or 0 (no knowledge/skill attainment). Higher scores indicate better self-management. Subscale scores are calculated by dividing the patient's score by the total possible subscale score. Subscale scores are then combined to create a total score, ranging from 0 to 10, but since we will only use 6 scales, 0 to 6. Total and subscale proportion scores will be used in analyses.
Sponsors and contacts
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Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati
Lead sponsor
Nemours Children's Health System
Collaborator
Emory University
Collaborator
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Collaborator