Ecological Momentary Computerised Adaptive Testing to monitor and compare recovery after hand surgery (EMCAT-2)

Research summary

Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are questionnaires that measure aspects of somebody’s health, like hand function. They can monitor a person’s health over time. Our team has made a smartphone app that make these questionnaires shorter. Previous research suggests that unlike the full-length questionnaire, people do not mind using the app every day. This could show us how quickly people recover after different types of hand surgery. We want to see whether our app could be used to compare patients’ experiences of recovery after different types of hand surgery. We will look at operations where we expect to see differences in patients’ recovery, and check whether the app is detecting these. We will recruit patients having different types of treatment for: 1) Dupuytren’s contracture (when tight fibres cause the finger to bend down towards the palm) 2) Fingers that get stuck in a bent position (trigger finger) 3) Arthritis at the base of the thumb 4) A trapped nerve in the wrist (carpal tunnel syndrome) Patients will use the app for 3-6 months after surgery. For each condition, we will compare how patients recovered from the different types of treatment. We also want to know whether the app could be used for remote dynamic/interactive follow up of patients after two common procedures (carpal tunnel decompression and injections to the base of the thumb), instead of having the patient attend a clinic appointment at routine, fixed, time points. We will check whether clinicians could have avoided seeing each patient in clinic, based on the information from the app, or timed the appointment to better meet the patient’s needs. To see if people like using the app, we will check how frequently they used it, and interview them about their experience.

Principal Investigator

Nicholas Riley

Contact us

Email: gail.lang@ndorms.ox.ac.uk

IRAS number

332275