Implementing Germ Defence digital behaviour change intervention via all primary care practices in England to reduce respiratory infections during the COVID-19 pandemic : an efficient cluster randomised controlled trial using the OpenSAFELY platform

(2023) Implementing Germ Defence digital behaviour change intervention via all primary care practices in England to reduce respiratory infections during the COVID-19 pandemic : an efficient cluster randomised controlled trial using the OpenSAFELY platform. Implementation science. 67. ISSN 1748-5908

Abstract

Metadata

Item Type: Article
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:

Funding Information: B. G., H. J. C., S. B. and A. M. have received research funding from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the NHS National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the NIHR School of Primary Care Research, NHS England, the NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, the Mohn-Westlake Foundation, NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Oxford and Thames Valley, the Wellcome Trust, the Good Thinking Foundation, Health Data Research UK, the Health Foundation, the World Health Organisation, UKRI MRC, Asthma UK, the British Lung Foundation and the Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing strand of the National Core Studies programme. B. G. is a Nonexecutive Director at NHS Digital; he also receives personal income from speaking and writing for lay audiences on the misuse of science. C. B. is employed by TPP, UK. R. A. is an employee of the UK Health Security Agency. All other authors declare that they have no competing interests. Funding Information: This research is funded by UKRI Coronavirus Rapid Response Call (CV220-009) and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) West at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust and NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Behavioural Science and Evaluation at University of Bristol. UKRI did not play any part in the design of this study, collection, analysis and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. Research in OpenSAFELY uses data assets made available as part of the Data and Connectivity National Core Study, led by Health Data Research UK in partnership with the Office for National Statistics and funded by UK Research and Innovation (grant ref MC_PC_20058). In addition, the OpenSAFELY platform is supported by grants from the Wellcome Trust (222097/Z/20/Z), MRC (MR/V015737/1, MC_PC-20059, MR/W016729/1), NIHR (NIHR135559, COV-LT2-0073) and Health Data Research UK (HDRUK2021.000, 2021.0157). Funding Information: We thank the participating primary care practices and all the clinicians and patients who took part in the study. In addition, we would like to thank Chris Voisey and Margie Berrow CRN West of England and Ed Park from the NIHR CRN Coordinating Centre for their help with management of the study and Chris Metcalfe (University of Bristol) for his assistance with the randomisation of practices. We also thank all who have supported and disseminated Germ Defence, including the University of Bath (Andy Dunne) and NIHR HPRU in Behavioural Science and Evaluation at University of Bristol (Helen Bolton and Clare Thomas), NIHR ARC West (Zoe Trinder-Widdess). We thank all who have assisted in the translation of Germ Defence into other languages (documented here: http://lang.germdefence.org/). We also thank the many citizen scientists and public contributors who assisted in the development of the Germ Defence intervention. We are very grateful for all the support received from the TPP Technical Operations team throughout this work and for generous assistance from the information governance and database teams at NHS England and the NHS Transformation Directorate. OpenSAFELY collective Alex J. Walker7, Brian MacKenna7, Peter Inglesby7, Caroline E. Morton7, Jessica Morley7, George Hickman7, Richard Croker7, David Evans7, Tom Ward7, Nicholas J. DeVito7, Louis Fisher7, Amelia C. A. Green7, Jon Massey7, Rebecca M. Smith7, William J. Hulme7, Simon Davy7, Colm D. Andrews7, Lisa E. M. Hopcroft7, Henry Drysdale7, Iain Dillingham7, Robin Y. Park7, Rose Higgins7, Christine Cunningham7, Milan Wiedemann7, Linda Nab7, Steven Maude7, Ben F. C. Butler-Cole7, Thomas O'Dwyer7, Catherine L. Stables7, Christopher Wood7, Andrew D. Brown7, Victoria Speed7, Lucy Bridges7, Andrea L. Schaffer7, Caroline E. Walters7, Christopher T. Rentsch14, Krishnan Bhaskaran14, Anna Schultze14, Elizabeth J. Williamson14, Helen I. McDonald14, Laurie A. Tomlinson14, Rosalind M. Eggo14, Kevin Wing14, Angel Y. S. Wong14, John Tazare14, Daniel J. Grint14, Sinead Langan14, Kathryn E. Mansfield14, Ian J. Douglas14, Stephen J. W. Evans14, Liam Smeeth14, Jemma L. Walker14, Viyaasan Mahalingasivam14, Thomas E. Cowling14, Emily L. Herrett14, Ruth E. Costello14, Bang Zheng14, Edward P. K. Parker14, Rohini Mathur15, Harriet Forbes6, Jonathan Cockburn8, John Parry8, Frank Hester8, Sam Harper814London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK15Queen Mary, University of London Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).

Keywords: Behaviour change, COVID-19, Digital medicine, Efficient trial design, eHealth, Infection control, Primary care, RCT, Respiratory tract infections
Dates:
  • Accepted: 15 November 2023
  • Published: 4 December 2023
Institution: The University of York
Academic Units: The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Chemistry (York)
The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Music (York)
The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Health Sciences (York)
Depositing User: Pure (York)
Date Deposited: 19 Apr 2024 08:50
Last Modified: 19 Apr 2024 08:50
Published Version: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-023-01321-z
Status: Published
Refereed: Yes
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-023-01321-z
Related URLs:

Download

Filename: s13012-023-01321-z.pdf

Description: Implementing Germ Defence digital behaviour change intervention via all primary care practices in England to reduce respiratory infections during the COVID-19 pandemic: an efficient cluster randomised controlled trial using the OpenSAFELY platform.

Licence: CC-BY 2.5

Export

Statistics