Efficacy of the installation of safety features to access steps to homes in Wellington and New Plymouth

Effect of the installation of handrails and high-visibility slip-resistant edgings to access steps. on rates of medically treated home injury due to falls among the general population who occupy houses with a flight of >4 and less than or equal to 15 access steps to the front door in the Wellington Region and New Plymouth.

Status

Recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ANZCTR

Registry ID

ACTRN12615001178538

Acronym

SOS

Enrollment

1200

Registered

2015-11-03

Start date

2015-10-15

Completion date

2016-02-11

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

Around 1,200 addresses will be identified in the Wellington Region and New Plymouth where there are more than 5 access steps and neither handrails nor step edgings (nosings). From these, 400 addresses will be randomly sampled to receive modifications at no cost to the occupants or owners. The modifications will consist of the provision of handrails and step edgings and minor step repairs where necessary. An address match for the treatment group homes and the control homes in the same area will then be conducted by the national injury insurer, ACC, to identify falls in the home that received ACC-funded medical treatment over the period before modification and after modification of the addresses in the study. Analysis will then be conducted on anonymised counts identified only by the general location, age group and sex of the injured people, and a random digit per address to identify falls happening at the same address (so that clustering by household can be accommodated in the analysis). The main analysis will be according to “Intention to Treat” principles, where injury rates for all homes allocated to the treatment group are compared to the controls. A secondary analysis will consider the safety benefits only for homes that consented to have the modifications done.

Interventions

Installation of safety features on access steps to home. These consist of handrails and step edgings (where possible) that are slip-resistant and high-visibility. The outcomes will be assessed based on an anonymised address match, so as long as addresses of injured people are recorded correctly, the exposures will be appropriately assigned during analysis.

Study design

Allocation

Randomised controlled trial

Intervention model

Parallel

Primary purpose

Prevention

Masking

Blinded (masking used) (Outcomes Assessor)

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

Houses in Wellington Region (New Zealand) or New Plymouth, with access steps to front door in flights of between 5 and 15 steps but where there are not more than 20 steps in total to the front door. These steps lack handrails and high-visibility slip-resistant nosings.

Exclusion criteria

Houses not fulfilling inclusion criteria

Outcome results