NCT04377529

Evaluating the Impact of a Champion on Implementation of the Back Skills Training (BeST) Program in Canada

Completed NA Last updated 23 October 2023

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Local Champion in Low Back Pain in 39 participants. Completed in 30 August 2022.

Timeline

1 September 2019

Primary endpoint
30 August 2022

30 August 2022

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Memorial University of Newfoundland
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	parallel
Masking	none
Primary purpose	other
Enrollment	39
Start date	1 September 2019
Primary completion	30 August 2022
Estimated completion	30 August 2022
Sites	1 location across Canada

Drugs / interventions tested

• Local Champion

Conditions studied

• Low Back Pain — all drugs for Low Back Pain →

Sponsor

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Who can join

18 and older, any sex, with Low Back Pain. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

There is global recognition in clinical guidelines and governing bodies that low back pain (LBP) should be managed with a biopsychosocial approach. Despite this, research indicates that physiotherapists, who treat the majority of LBP patients in the community, do not feel confident in using this treatment approach. Previous work to support implementation in this field has resulted in low uptake and has highlighted several barriers to implementation, including the need for additional ongoing support. The use of a local champion to support implementation has been successful in other fields and thus, represents a viable strategy to explore. Before undertaking a fully powered trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a champion for implementation, a pilot study is being conducted to determine the feasibility of the intervention as well as determining the feasibility of using a cluster randomised controlled trial to evaluate it.

In this study, a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial design will be used with an embedded qualitative interview study. Physiotherapists will be recruited who manage LBP in any publicly funded physiotherapy departments within Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Individual sites will be grouped into clusters based on their number of full-time physiotherapists, geography, and organisational relationships. All participants will be asked to complete a previously developed online training course to upskill them to deliver a biopsychosocial evidence-based intervention for LBP. Clusters randomised to receive a local champion will receive additional support from their champion. A basic champion training package has been developed based on known barriers in the literature. This will be tailored by co-developing aspects with study champions based on a comprehensive assessment of perceived implementation barriers using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation and Behaviour (COM-B) model. A range of physiotherapist-level outcomes pre-post training will be measured and implementation of the evidence based biopsychosocial intervention will be monitored during a 6-month period after completion of the online training. After this 6-month period, a purposive sample of physiotherapists from each cluster who had both implemented and failed to implement the biopsychosocial intervention will be interviewed.

Publications & conference data

1 peer-reviewed publication reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Evaluating the impact of a champion on implementation of the Back Skills Training (BeST) programme in Canada: a mixed methods feasibility study protocol.
   Hall A, Richmond H, Bursey K, Hansen Z, et al · · 2020 · cited 2× · PMID 33257487 · DOI 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-040834