Acceptance Based Telephone Support When Transitioning to SPMS

Summary

What is the purpose of the study?

People with Multiple Sclerosis often say that they feel less support is available after they are diagnosed with Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, compared to before they received this diagnosis. People sometimes experience a lessening of support, despite their physical symptoms becoming more severe from both professionals and those in their personal lives. The purpose of this study is to see whether providing some telephone support to those who have recently received a diagnosis of Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis is experienced as helpful and is possible to do practically. This study will help the investigators understand which type of support may be helpful for patients in the future and may pave the way for larger studies and changes to NHS provision.

Who is it for?

Participants will be those who have transitioned recently (within the last year) to Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. The investigators are inviting 40 participants to take part.

What will happen to participants if they take part?

Participants will be asked by their Neurologist or MS Nurse to take part in the study and will provide written consent to be contacted, which will be stored by the research team. Their details will be passed to the study team at the University of Nottingham, who will telephone the participant within a week to tell them a bit more about the study and ensure they are suitable for the study by asking them some questions. Following this, the participant will be sent some paper or online questionnaires to complete and return. After this, the researcher will visit the participant face to face to introduce themselves and answer any questions they may have. They will also tell the participants what "group" they have been randomly put into. There are two groups.

Those in the first group would be asked to commit to receiving a 30 minute support phonecall each week for five weeks in addition to any usual care, and the second group will receive their usual NHS care. The support phonecalls will draw from techniques used in a type of psychological therapy (acceptance and commitment therapy). All the phonecalls can be done whilst the participant is at home or in a quiet place of their choosing. After this, both groups will fill in some more paper questionnaires eight and twelve weeks after the start of the study. The investigators expect that participants will be involved in the study for around 4 months.

After the study, participants will also have the opportunity to feedback how they experienced being a participant in the study. Their responses will help the researchers understand their experience, and help them use this to think about how to adapt similar studies in the future.

Conditions

• Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis

Interventions

OTHER

Acceptance Based Telephone Support (ABS+UC)

Support based on Acceptance and Committment Therapy (Hayes, 1999)

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Nottingham

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2019-09-09

Primary Completion

2020-03-20

Completion

2020-03-20

Countries

• United Kingdom

Study Locations