Using Specialist Screening Practitioners (SSPs) to increase uptake of the Bowel Scope (Flexible Sigmoidoscopy) Screening Programme: a study protocol for a feasibility single-stage phase II trial
The NHS Bowel Scope Screening (BSS) programme offers men and women aged 55 years a once-only flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS), a test that can help reduce colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence and mortality. However, the benefits of BSS are contingent on uptake. This National Institute for Health Research-funded single-stage phase II trial will test the feasibility of using patient navigation (PN), an intervention that offers support to patients to overcome barriers to healthcare, to increase BSS uptake within a socially deprived area of England.
All individuals invited for BSS at South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust during the 6-month recruitment period will be invited to take part in the study. Consenting participants will be randomised to receive PN or usual care in a 2:1 ratio. PN involves non-attenders receiving a phone call from a Specialist Screening Practitioner (SSP) who will elicit reasons for non-attendance and offer educational, practical, and emotional support as needed. If requested by the patient, another appointment for BSS will then be arranged. We anticipate 30 % of participants will be non-attenders. Using A'Hern single-stage design, with 20 % significance level and 80 % power, at least 35 participants who receive PN need to subsequently attend for PN to be considered worthy of further investigation in a definitive trial. The primary outcome measure will be the number of participants in the PN group who re-book and attend their BSS appointment. A qualitative analysis of the PN transcripts, and interviews with the SSPs, will also be conducted, alongside a quantitative analysis of completed patient-reported experience questionnaires. An economic analysis will calculate the costs of delivering PN.
This feasibility study will be instrumental in deciding whether to conduct the first definitive trial of PN in BSS in England. If PN is subsequently shown to be cost-effective at increasing uptake of BSS, NHS policies could be modified to implement PN as a standard service. The results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and at scientific conferences.
International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial Number, ISRCTN13314752.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
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Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 March 2017.
All research outputs
#8,068,302
of 27,497,039 outputs
Outputs from Pilot and Feasibility Studies
#468
of 1,292 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#100,614
of 315,652 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Pilot and Feasibility Studies
#17
of 25 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,497,039 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,292 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 63% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 25 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 32nd percentile – i.e., 32% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
