IPE of targeted education to reduce non-urgent paediatric attendance
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Implementation and process evaluation of 'distribution of targeted educational materials to families after they attend emergency or urgent care with a child under 5 years-old in a non-urgent situation, in order to reduce future repeat non-urgent attendances'
IRAS ID
258521
Contact name
Ben Holden
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
We are proposing an 'implementation and process evaluation' of IRAS project ID: 229748 to further explore initial findings from the randomised controlled trial.
A randomised controlled trial (RCT) called BLUEPRINTS was conducted in two London hospitals by Connecting Care for Children (CC4C) from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT). The intervention involved distributing targeted educational materials to families after they attended emergency or urgent care departments with a child under 5 years old in a non-urgent situation. The goal of the intervention was to reduce the frequency of non-urgent hospital Paediatric Emergency Department (ED) and Urgent Care Centre (UCC) reattendances by parents of children aged 0-4.
The main findings of the trial were that on average, the treatment did not have a detectable effect on non-urgent reattendances. However, secondary analysis did find a significant interaction between the treatment and gender. Furthermore, being a ‘power user’, defined as families who made 6 or more non-urgent attendances were much more likely to make a non-urgent reattendance during the trial evaluation period.
Randomised controlled trials tell us ‘what works’; implementation and process evaluations (IPEs) help us to understand how and why it works (or, in the case of null impact, why an intervention appears not to have worked). This IPE has been designed to complement the impact evaluation and to focus on the causal mechanisms and key moderating factors (i.e. contextual factors) identified in a logic model (Appendix 1) developed by CC4C and BIT post-intervention. Interrogating the logic model, in particular the theorised causal mechanisms, will help us gain a more in-depth understanding of what particular active ingredients may be bringing about changes.
Based on this, we have chosen to conduct an IPE with qualitative approach consisting of a set of semi-structured interviews and observations.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/EE/0020
Date of REC Opinion
18 Jan 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion