Evaluation of aid to diagnosis for DDH in general practice, Version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of an aid to diagnosis for congenital dysplasia of the hip in general practice: controlled trial randomised by practice
IRAS ID
259615
Contact name
Andreas Roposch
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 11 months, 30 days
Research summary
Developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) is one of the most common inborn diseases. Early diagnosis of this condition is very important and it can be harmful both to miss DDH and label normal infants as having DDH. Why DDH can be missed or labelled to normal children is not well understood but can be related to the doctor's knowledge, skill and the way the hip consultation is conducted. This research aims to help overcome these issues and proposes the use of a diagnostic aid for DDH in general (GP) practices.
We will divide GP practices in England into two groups. One group will use our checklist for all hip checks they carry out. The other group will work as they usually do, without the aid. We will compare if GPs who use the checklist will do better in identifying babies with DDH than those who do not use our checklist. We will also evaluate whether using the checklist reduces costs for families around trips to doctors or hospitals, and costs to the NHS. In addition we will interview GPs, health visitors and carers of infants to elicit their perceptions about the intervention. We will include GP practices registered in England who carry out the 6-week hip check (at infant age 42-76 days) and agree to being randomised and to hospitals releasing data on infants they had examined during the study period.
Practices planning to close within 12 months of the start of the study are not eligible. Eligible participants will be identified by general practice patient registers and infants will be invited to attend a 6-week check at their local practices, the research sites. We plan to include a total of 152 practices in this study and will collaborate with 15 NIHR CRNs to recruit GP practices with efficient and existing infrastructure.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/EM/0317
Date of REC Opinion
12 Dec 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion