An evaluation of the impact of the 'Your Heart Forecast' Tool on smokers' understanding of their cardiovascular disease risk and their motivation to make lifestyle changes.

Status

Not yet recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12610000108011

Enrollment

100

Registered

2010-02-02

Start date

2010-03-01

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2020-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

None listed

Brief summary

‘Your Heart Forecast’ is an electronic tool that was developed to help doctors explain cardiovascular risk to their patients and encourage them to make important lifestyle changes. The Heart Forecast was piloted in over 40 practices in Auckland and Northland in early 2009. Feedback was positive, indicating that the tool supported cardiovascular risk communication and shared decision making. The current study aims to more formally test the efficacy of the Heart Forecast, examining whether it improves patients’ understanding of the determinants of their risk and helps motivate them to make necessary lifestyle changes. One hundred patients aged 30-65 who are current smokers will be recruited on to this study. They will be randomised to receive one of two interventions: either usual risk assessment or usual risk assessment plus the Heart Forecast. Changes in understanding and motivation will be assessed via questionnaires immediately pre- and post, and 1-month post, their intervention sessions.

Interventions

The 'Your Heart Forecast' tool, an electronic tool that was developed to help doctors explain cardiovascular risk to their patients and encourage them to make important lifestyle changes. Administered by the patient's doctor or practice nurse, the Heart Forecast Tool provides a graphical story, starting with a patient's current cardiovascular risk, and showing them how they compare to a peer with ideal risk factor control and the same cardiovascular risk. The tool then shows patients what happens to their risk as they get older and make no changes to their current risk factors (their Heart Forecast), and then what would happen to their risk in the future if they were able to make changes (eg. stop smoking). The Heart Forecast takes 5-10 minutes to administer and can be downloaded free via this website address: http://www.yourheartforecast.org.nz/index.asp?pageID=2145872462 Participants allocated to this intervention group also undergo the 'usual risk assessment' in addition to the Heart Forecast tool.

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Educational / counselling / training

Masking

Open (masking not used)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Age

30 Years to 65 Years

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

Smokers aged 30-65 years

Exclusion criteria

Patients with clinically high risk, as defined by New Zealand Guidelines Group criteria - ie. if they have any of the following: - previous cardiovascular disease - stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA) - diabetes complicated by renal disease - a genetic lipid disorder - blood pressure 170/100 or over - total cholesterol or total cholesterol/high density lipoprotein ratio (TC/HDL) 8 or over - pregnant Also, non-English speakers would be excluded as the Forecast tool is available in English language version only

Outcome results