Research
Measuring treatment burden in stroke survivors (TRUSTED study)
People with stroke may have to put time and effort into managing their condition, for example by taking medications and attending hospital and GP appointments, as well as other therapists.
If people with stroke find these routines difficult and time consuming, it is possible that they may feel unable to follow their treatments, as they are overwhelmed by them.
The term "treatment burden" is defined as the workload of managing health and the impact that this work has on wellbeing. Recent research has given us knowledge about how stroke survivors experience treatment burden. We wanted to develop a way of measuring treatment burden so that we can identify those who are heavily burdened and to allow as to test out different ways of providing healthcare and measure the impact on treatment burden.
PETS-stroke
The TRUSTED study tested a new self-reported questionnaire that measures treatment burden after stroke (PETS-stroke). PETS-stroke was tested in a large group of stroke survivors within one year of their stroke by giving out survey packs that were completed at home and returned to the research team.
PETS-stroke was found to be suitable as an outcome measure in clinical trials of stroke treatments to evaluate treatment burden.
To obtain the PETS-stroke measure, please contact: Katie.Gallacher@glasgow.ac.uk
The team
- Dr Katie Gallacher (General Practice and Primary Care, University of Glasgow)
- Prof Frances Mair (General Practice and Primary Care, University of Glasgow)
- Dr Martin Taylor-Rowan (General Practice and Primary Care, University of Glasgow)
- Dr Jala Rizeq (School of Health & Wellbeing, University of Glasgow)
- Prof Lisa Kidd (Research Centre for Health (ReaCH)/School of Health and Life Sciences, Glasgow Caledonian University)
- Dr Terry Quinn (School of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow)
- Prof David Eton
- Prof Hamish McLeod (School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow)