NCT04756609: DEPIST-COVID

Systematic Offer of Nurse-Driven Screening for COVID-19 in Emergency Departments in the Paris Metropolitan Area, DEPIST-COVID

Completed NA Last updated 10 October 2023

What this trial tests

NA trial testing Systematic offer of nurse-driven SARS-CoV-2 screening combined with usual practice in SARS-CoV Infection in 138,352 participants. Completed in 15 June 2021.

Timeline

12 March 2021

Primary endpoint
31 May 2021

15 June 2021

Quick facts

Lead sponsor	Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris
Phase	NA
Status	Completed
Study type	INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation	randomized
Design	crossover
Masking	none
Primary purpose	screening
Enrollment	138,352
Start date	12 March 2021
Primary completion	31 May 2021
Estimated completion	15 June 2021
Sites	1 location across France

Drugs / interventions tested

• Systematic offer of nurse-driven SARS-CoV-2 screening combined with usual practice
• Usual emergency department practice with physician-directed diagnostic testing

Conditions studied

• SARS-CoV Infection — all drugs for SARS-CoV Infection →
• Nurse's Role — all drugs for Nurse's Role →

Sponsor

Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris — full company profile →

Who can join

18 and older, any sex, with SARS-CoV Infection or Nurse's Role. Patients with the condition only — healthy volunteers not accepted.

Sponsor's own description

European countries faced another wave of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, which has led to a second lockdown in France in November 2020 in order to avoid overwhelming health services. To prevent or reduce another wave, the strategy calls for vaccination, maintaining barrier measures and testing and isolating infected persons in order to break the cycles of infection. The latter objective is made difficult by the existence of asymptomatic carriers or symptomatic carriers that have very few symptoms and that aren't tested. Identification of these carriers in the general population is usually based on a search for close contact persons from those who were tested positive or from identified clusters.

Experiments of mass testing are being carried out or were carried out, for example in Liverpool or Slovakia but, in order for them to be effective, they must be repeated, which limits feasibility. Another strategy of wide screening in the general population to identify asymptomatic persons is to offer a systematic screening during medical consultations and particularly in the emergency departments (ED). This strategy grants access to the entire population attending health facilities, including persons with lower income. This strategy can be conducted continuously in order to: 1) contribute to controlling the epidemic by identifying and isolating asymptomatic persons and their close contacts; 2) provide an observatory on the evolution of viral circulation in the general population.

To the best the knowledge, this strategy has not been evaluated and will be tested it in 18 emergency departments in the Paris Metropolitan area, one of the most SARS-CoV2 affected regions.

The aim is to evaluate the benefit of a systematic offer of SARS-Cov2 screening by rapid testing (molecular multiplex PCR/ RT-LAMP) to identify infected persons, associated with the usual practice of the EDs (intervention strategy) compared to a period based on usual practice of the EDs (control strategy)

The strategies will be compared during two periods following a cluster-randomized two-period crossover design.

During intervention periods, nurses will suggest performing a SARS-CoV2 test to patients using a PCR multiplex for symptomatic patients and a RT-LAMP for asymptomatic patients.

Publications & conference data

3 peer-reviewed publications reference this trial (live from Europe PMC):

1. Randomized trials on non-pharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19: a scoping review.
   Hirt J, Janiaud P, Hemkens LG. · · 2022 · cited 24× · PMID 35086864 · DOI 10.1136/bmjebm-2021-111825
2. Intensified screening for SARS-CoV-2 in 18 emergency departments in the Paris metropolitan area, France (DEPIST-COVID): A cluster-randomized, two-period, crossover trial.
   Leblanc J, Dusserre-Telmon L, Chauvin A, Simon T, et al · · 2023 · cited 1× · PMID 38060611 · DOI 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004317
3. Randomized trials on non-pharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19 as of August 2021: a meta-epidemiological analysis
   Hirt J, Janiaud P, Hemkens LG. · · 2021 · DOI 10.1101/2021.08.20.21261687