CARESSf

Introduction about the study, objectives and methods

Why is the CARESSf study needed?

A cardiac arrest occurs when someone’s heart suddenly stops beating. In the UK, around 5,500 people survive their cardiac arrest each year. For these people, life is never the same again. Long-term problems with memory, emotions, fatigue, and physical difficulties can reduce their quality of life. People are often anxious about carrying out daily activities. These changes can be upsetting for family members and key supporters, particularly if they were present at the time of the arrest. They may also experience long-term emotional difficulties. Little is known about how best to support survivors and their family members following cardiac arrest. Some may need specialist care and support. Some survivors attend cardiac rehabilitation, but this is not designed to address the specific emotional and physical needs of a cardiac arrest survivor.

We want to develop a new programme of one-to-one education, support, and exercise rehabilitation, provided soon after returning home from hospital, to help improve the quality of life of survivors and their family members. In this study, we will develop an early support programme and assess whether it can be delivered in the NHS.

How will we do this? We will adapt an existing rehabilitation programme, originally developed for other patient groups. The new programme will be delivered face-to-face in person, or online using video-conferencing software like Microsoft Teams.

What is CARESSf and what does it involve?

CARESSf is an acronym for our research study titled the “Cardiac Arrest Recovery Enablement and Supported Self-management feasibility study”.

Who is involved: This study is a collaboration between Warwick Medical School (Professor Kirstie Haywood) and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust (Dr Nathan Pearson, Professor Gordon McGregor). We are also working closely with the charity Sudden Cardiac Arrest UK (SCAUK).

What we will do: Working with cardiac arrest survivors, their families, and health professionals we will develop a new programme of care to support people after having a cardiac arrest. We will test to see if this care pathway can be delivered in the NHS.

Phase 1 – developing the CARESS care pathway: We will talk to fifteen survivors and their key supporters (family member or close friends) to find out what should be included. We will talk to managers and health professionals to understand how to deliver it in the NHS. A group meeting with survivors, supporters, and health professionals will agree the final programme.

Phase 2 – testing whether the CARESS care pathway can be delivered within the NHS: We will test the programme with up to 30 survivors and 30 key supporters. People will take part after getting home from hospital. We will talk to people after they have finished the programme to find out how it helped them in their recovery, and how it could be improved.

We will use this information to develop a future study that will test if and how the new programme improves the quality of life of cardiac arrest survivors, and key supporters.

Research Partnerships

The CARESSf study is supported by the active collaboration with three different teams. Each team has a distinct role in the delivery of CARESSf, and these are described below.

Study Steering Committee: this is a group of 6 independent expert researchers and clinicians. One member is also a public partner. This committee meets throughout the study to provide advice and guidance to the research team.

Study Management Team: this is a team of 9 people with expertise in psychology, developing care pathways, trial methods and health. Three members are public research partners and participate as members of this team. This team meets monthly to help guide the study with its research activities.

Public Research Partners: our public partner group consists of 10 people with lived experience as cardiac arrest survivors, key supporters or advocates. This team meets monthly and has an active role in the study as co-producers of the research activity, approaches, and analysis of study findings.

Our public partners (survivors, key supporters and advocates) have helped us develop this study. They will continue to support all research phases.

Contact details

The CARESSf resource account –CARESSf@warwick.ac.uk.
Professor Kirstie Haywood (Chief Investigator) –k.l.haywood@warwick.ac.uk
Dr Nathan Pearson –nathan.pearson@uhcw.nhs.uk

Dates of the project

Phase 1: Developing the CARESS care pathway. November 6, 2023 to October 31, 2024.
Phase 2: Testing the care pathway with survivors and key supporters. November 1, 2024 to March 31, 2026.

Funding information

The study is funded by the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) through their Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) programme. This is a Tier 2 award (Reference: NIHR204049)