PERFECTED enhanced recovery pathway (PERFECT-ER) versus standard acute hospital care for people after hip fracture surgery who have cognitive impairment: a feasibility cluster randomised controlled trial.

OBJECTIVES

Assess feasibility of a cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) to measure clinical and cost-effectiveness of an enhanced recovery pathway for people with hip fracture and cognitive impairment (CI).

DESIGN

Feasibility trial undertaken between 2016 and 2018.

SETTING

Eleven acute hospitals from three UK regions.

PARTICIPANTS

284 participants (208 female:69 male).

INCLUSION CRITERIA: aged >60 years, confirmed proximal hip fracture requiring surgical fixation and CI; preoperative AMTS ≤8 in England or a 4AT score ≥1 in Scotland; minimum of 5 days on study ward; a 'suitable informant' able to provide proxy measures, recruited within 7 days of hip fracture surgery.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA: no hip surgery; not expected to survive beyond 4 weeks; already enrolled in a clinical trial.

INTERVENTION: PERFECT-ER, an enhanced recovery pathway with 15 quality targets supported by a checklist and manual, a service improvement lead a process lead and implemented using a plan-do-study-act model.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Feasibility outcomes: recruitment and attrition, intervention acceptability, completion of participant reported outcome measures, preliminary estimates of potential effectiveness using mortality, EQ-5D-5L, economic and clinical outcome scores.

RESULTS

282 participants were consented and recruited (132, intervention) from a target of 400. Mean recruitment rates were the same in intervention and control sites, (range: 1.2 and 2.7 participants/month). Retention was 230 (86%) at 1 month and 54%(144) at 6 months. At 3 months a relatively small effect (one quarter of an SD) was observed on health-related quality of life of the patient measured with EQ-5D-5L proxy in the intervention group.

CONCLUSION

This trial design was feasible with modifications to recruitment. Mechanisms for delivering consistency in the PERFECT-ER intervention and participant retention need to be addressed. However, an RCT may be a suboptimal research design to evaluate this intervention due to the complexity of caring for people with CI after hip fracture.

TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN99336264.