None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronas virus (SARS COV-2) has spread quickly around the world and caused many deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVD-19). Elderly people and frail people such as those in care homes are particularly at risk of death from COVID-19 and there are few effective treatments. SARS COV-2 is thought to infect people via the nose and mouth. Current best practise to prevent infection focuses on good hand hygiene, the wearing of masks and by limiting social contact. However, elderly people in care homes have to come into contact with staff members who are looking after them. We would like to know if rinsing of the mouth and nose of care home staff might reduce the incidence of COVID-19 in residents. This study aims to understand whether the proposed methods are feasible and practical for care home staff and researchers, thus informing a future randomised trial.
Interventions
The intervention is to ask care home (CH) managers to advise their healthcare staff to perform nasal irrigation and gargling with saline (HSNIG) before and at least once during each shift. The aim of nasal lavage and gargling is to reduce asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare workers, and thus reduce onward transmission to vulnerable care home residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The nasal rinse and gargling uses saline of approximately 3% salinity up both nostrils and then g
The intervention is to ask care home (CH) managers to advise their healthcare staff to perform nasal irrigation and gargling with saline (HSNIG) before and at least once during each shift. The aim of nasal lavage and gargling is to reduce asymptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare workers, and thus reduce onward transmission to vulnerable care home residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. The nasal rinse and gargling uses saline of approximately 3% salinity up both nostrils and then gargled from a 60 mL Gallipot. The study is a feasibility and pilot study. Outcomes in intervention care homes will be compared to control care homes that will not be advising their staff to perform nasal lavage and gargling. Each intervention care home will be provided with adequate supplies of Gallipots, salt, stirrers and information leaflets and posters to display to staff. Training will be provided remotely, prior to the start of the study, by means of both online videos (made available via private links) and written materials. These materials have been designed specifically for the purposes of this study. They are not available publically, to avoid the potential for methodological contamination of the study design. Care home staff will be asked to watch the videos once, but will be able to watch the videos as often as they wish for the duration of the study. The study will last 12 weeks from the date the first care home starts. Care homes will start in a phased way, determined by recruitment, and no care home will undertake the intervention for less than 8 weeks. During the study, staff attendance at training sessions, and subsequent adherence/fidelity to HSNIG will be recorded and captured by responses to weekly surveys completed both by care home managers/rinsing champions, and by care home staff. During the study, care home workers will be asked to perform HSNIG at the care home that they work in before the start of each shift, and as often as possible during the shift.
Sponsors
University of Southampton
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Prevention
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
Any CH with facilities for staff to carry out HSNIG and authority to decide on this and on providing relevant data to the study team
Exclusion criteria
Care Homes where HSNIG has already part of hygiene policy Any CH with a high proportion (50% or more) of agency staff (typically this is approximately 25%)
Outcome results
None listed