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Stopping Upper Respiratory Infections and Flu in the Family: The Stuffy Trial

NCT00448981 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 2788

Last updated 2026-05-05

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Colds and flu cause much loss of work and school. The purpose of this study is to try to reduce the transmission of colds and flu among household members with one of three interventions: some educational material, educational material and use of alcohol hand sanitizers, and educational material and use of alcohol hand sanitizers as well as face masks when somebody has symptoms of the flu. We will recruit 450 households in Northern Manhattan and each household will be randomly assigned to one of these three groups. We will then follow these households for 15 months to see how often they get cold and flu symptoms. We will also look at antibiotic use practices for symptoms of colds and influenza ; household member knowledge of prevention and treatment strategies for pandemic influenza and viral URIs; and rates of influenza vaccination among household members. When someone in the study has serious flu symptoms such as a high fever and cough or sore throat, we will also obtain a nasal culture (by swabbing the nose) to see if there is flu virus present.

Conditions

  • Respiratory Tract Infections
  • Common Cold

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Education

Educational materials (English or Spanish) on prevention and treatment of upper respiratory infections (URIs) and influenza.

DEVICE

Hand Sanitizer

Alcohol-based hand sanitizer provided in multiple sizes for use at home, work, and school.

DEVICE

Face Masks

Surgical face masks with instructions for use when a household member develops influenza-like illness (ILI).

Sponsors & Collaborators

Principal Investigators

  • Elaine Larson, RN,PhD · Columbia University School of Nursing

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2006-11-30
Primary Completion
2008-06-30
Completion
2008-06-30

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Entities

Companies

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT00448981 on ClinicalTrials.gov