VERDIS-AHP
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Enhancing staff-patient communication in palliative and end-of-life care: Video-based communication research with allied health professionals (VERDIS-AHP)
IRAS ID
213496
Contact name
Ruth Parry
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
LOROS Site ID, N0019991
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 8 months, 30 days
Research summary
Sensitive, effective communication with patients lies at the heart of healthcare, including the care of terminally ill people. We know that such patients value empathic, honest, but hopeful communication and opportunities to be involved in discussing plans and decisions about future care - all of which can have important influences on place of death and aggressiveness of care in the final days of life. However, we know little about the actual skills and techniques that specialist allied health professionals and their patients use in such sensitive, challenging discussions.
Video- and audio-based research using an approach called Conversation Analysis is providing new possibilities to build precise understandings of the implicit skills that healthcare staff and their patients use to communicate with one another. This knowledge is, furthermore, helpful in developing training and guidelines based on actual communication that can support and enhance the teaching of communication skills among health and social care staff and trainees.
We are planning to study the communication that takes place in hospice-based consultations/therapy sessions involving palliative care specialist occupational therapists and/or physiotherapists (and any accompanying health and social care staff) and their patients (and any accompanying relatives or friends). We are doing this to better understand the communication skills needed for effective care of terminally ill people. We will record up to 45 consultations or therapy sessions involving up to 10 occupational therapists, up to 10 physiotherapists (and up to 20 accompanying health and social care staff) and up to 45 patients (and any accompanying relatives/friends). We will use Conversation Analysis to describe their communication patterns and will focus on identifying the verbal and non-verbal practices embodied in activities such as broaching the end of life; planning and decision-making; touch and gesture. Our findings will form the basis of written reports and staff training resources.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EM/0037
Date of REC Opinion
7 Mar 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion