Sleep telemetry services: a feasibility study (v1)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The perception and reality of sleep quality and diagnostic yield in sleep telemetry services: a feasibility study
IRAS ID
226550
Contact name
Jennifer Gethin
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Aston University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 2 months, 28 days
Research summary
Sleep problems can be diagnosed by “sleep telemetry”; the patient wears sensors overnight to look at brain activity, breathing and movement. This test is normally done in hospital, but new technology means patients can now take the equipment home. Doctors often let the patient choose a home or hospital test.
People tend to sleep better at home, and better quality of sleep is more likely to help doctors diagnose patients’ problems. We want to compare sleep quality and rates of diagnosis in home and hospital sleep telemetry patients to see if there really is a difference between the two test locations. The best way to do this is to randomly give a group of patients a home or hospital sleep telemetry test instead of letting them choose. If we are right that patients really do sleep better at home and are also more likely to get a diagnosis, this information would justify more frequent use of home equipment.
Before doing a full study, we want to do a smaller scale study (“feasibility study”) to design the larger study appropriately. We will give both home and hospital sleep telemetry patients a short questionnaire asking about their reasons for choice of home or hospital, and if they would have been willing to take part in a study where they did not get that choice. We will also check that the information in patient’s sleep telemetry clinical reports would be enough to answer our questions about sleep quality and diagnosis. The results of this feasibility study will help us set up the larger study so it runs as well as possible.
The study will run from Sheffield’s Royal Hallamshire Hospital. All English-speaking sleep telemetry patients (with capacity to consent) seen in the 3-month study timeframe will be invited.
REC name
West Midlands - South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/WM/0357
Date of REC Opinion
19 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion