Participants (patients and care-coordinators):
Instruments:
Patients:
SOLES (Singh O'Brien Level of Engagement Scale, O'Brien et al 2009). (Appendix 1) This self-reporting scale is designed to measure the level of engagement in people with psychosis. It contains 16 questions covering various aspects of engagement, each question scored in a scale ranging from 0-10. This scale takes about 8-10 minutes to be completed.
Care Coordinators:
SES (Service Engagement Scale, Tait et al 2002). (Appendix 2) The SES is a scale completed by clinicians to assess their perceived level of engagement of patients under their care. It is a 14-question scale covering the same areas as the SOLES. The scale taken about 4-6 minutes to be completed.
Care Coordinator Feasibility Questionnaire:
It would also be of interest to collect feedback from care coordinators about the ease of use of the procedure along with the relevance and acceptability. This will be done through the use of a self reporting scale of how feasible the intervention delivery was. (Appendix 3)
Interventions:
When arranging appointments or having any other communication outside face-to-face meetings, care coordinators participating in this study will be expected to contact their patients in two distinct ways:
(i) 20 patients will receive Standard contact: this will happen by means of letters, telephone call and voicemail's only. Care co-ordinators already have trust mobile phones that they can use.
(ii) 20 patients will receive Digital media contact: only text messages and e-mails will be used to contact patients. Care coordinators will also be provided with i-pads (funded by the British Research Council so that they can do this when also outside of clinic).
Both types of contact will be made explicit for care coordinators at the beginning of the study, with frequent reminders occurring during the period of data collection. Care coordinators will have immediate access to written information about each of the interventions through participant information and consent forms provided (appendix 5).
Design:
A two-arm pragmatic pilot Randomised Controlled Trial. will be conducted comparing the digital media contact methods with standard contact methods and will assess the potential for progressing into a full pragmatic Randomised Controlled Trial. The co-primary outcome measures are to determine whether engagement with care coordinator/services improves through the use of digital media communication compared to standard methods of communication using The Singh O'Brien Level of Engagement Scales (SOLES)(O'Brien et al 2009) (SOLES) and The Service Engagement Scale (SES) (Tait et al 2002). These are self rating scales which will be completed both pre and post intervention to examine whether or not there has been an increase in engagement. Success of the study will be measured by an increase of scores in the scales to determine whether or not increased engagement was achieved.
Procedures:
Consecutive patients accepted for care under EIP teams will be asked to consent to participate in this study. If they consent, they will be allocated to one of two groups: either the Standard group or the Digital Media group. It is expected that each group will have approximately 20 patients. Care coordinator's will also be asked to consent to participate in the study and will be briefed by chief investigator on procedures.
Two months after intake into the study, patients and care coordinators will complete their respective engagement questionnaires. The level of engagement of each group, as measured by the instruments, will be used to analyse and compare the impact of the interventions.
