6th UK Implementation Science Research Conference
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PRESENter
Julie Williams
presenter biography
Julie is a post doctoral researcher and Occupational Therapist based in the Centre for Implementation Science at King’s College London. She is currently working on the Integrating Mental and Physical Healthcare Systems projects which is aiming to improve the physical health of people using mental health services by developing new interventions and services and providing support to implement them successfully. She is the PI for the Health Champions study.
background
People with severe mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia are more likely to have physical health comorbidities than the general population. Interventions are needed to address this. Volunteers can bring a different and valued experience to supporting people with SMI. We report on a feasibility hybrid trial of an intervention called ‘Health Champions’ in which volunteers are trained to support individuals with their physical health.
MEthod
The study is a feasibility randomised Hybrid II trial. Health Champions provided weekly one to one support for up to nine months.
Our primary effectiveness outcome is physical health related quality of life and we also collected data on other related clinical and social outcomes. We collected data on clinical effectiveness at baseline and at the end of the intervention. We are conducting interviews with Health Champions and participants at the end of the intervention to understand their experience of the intervention and to evaluate the implementation challenges and collecting standardised Implementation Science measures. We are collecting data on the costs of the intervention as part of the economic evaluation.
results
The intervention started during COVID and has been delivered both online and face-to face depending on the precautions at the time. To-date, we have recruited 48 participants, with 27 in the intervention arm and 21 in the control arm. We are still collecting data and will give an update on the results so far.
Conclusion
We will use the data collected to understand whether the Health Champions intervention is implementable, what the implementation challenges are, whether clinical and implementation outcomes can be collected and indicate any differences between trial arms, and whether the intervention is cost effective. We will use these results to decide on whether to undertake a larger trial and/or to recommend the intervention as part of routine care.