Assessment of patient preference of follow-up in cardiac stent trials

Rationale:

In current clinical practice there is a increasing demand for real-world evidence to guide public health and clinical decision-making, therefore the patient-centered research approach will be an integral part of future research endeavors. Collaboration between health care workers and patients will thus play an increasing role in future research. To improve this professional relationship it is important to assess patients preferences since patient satisfaction is an important element in evaluating the quality of health care services from the patient’s perspective and in predicting how patients will behave after receiving services. Although there are a few patient preference studies on therapy, data is still lacking in how patients prefer to be followed-up There is no data on patients preference on follow-up and how they prefer to be contacted when included in stent trials.



Objective:

To investigate the patient preference of approach to obtain follow-up information after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI)



Study design:

Single-center, prospective, observational registry



Study population:

All patients enrolled in the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) studies TWENTE trial (a broad study population reflecting real-world PCI patients) and DUTCH PEERS trial (an all-comers population), who were treated at Thoraxcentrum Twente in Enschede between June 2008 and May 2012



Intervention:

All subjects will receive a questionnaire with questions regarding their preference with regards of the approach of acquiring follow-up information after PCI



Main study endpoints:

- The primary endpoint is the patient preference on how to be approached for annual follow-up after PCI procedures.

- Secondary endpoints include (1) least preferred approach of follow up, (2) the preferred number of follow-up moments per year, (3) the from the patient’s perspective maximum acceptable number of questions to be answered, (4) the assessment of potential relationships between the most and least preferred approach of assessment and patient age, gender, urgency of PCI treatment, and history of previous revascularizations

To investigate whether patients prefer to be approached by mailed questionnaires for annual follow-up assessment after PCI procedures versus telephone interviews or email-based follow-up

Questionnaires were sent once to the patients home address

All subjects will receive a questionnaire with questions regarding their preference with regards of the approach of acquiring follow-up information after PCI.

Patient and procedural characteristics of non-responders were compared to responders.