TY - JOUR T1 - Novel study design to assess the utility of the COPD assessment test (CAT) JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J VL - 38 IS - Suppl 55 SP - p3764 AU - Kevin Gruffydd-Jones AU - Helen Pearce AU - Steve Holmes AU - Peter Kardos AU - Roger Escamila AU - Roberto Dal Negro AU - June Roberts AU - Gilbert Nadeau AU - David Leather AU - Paul Jones Y1 - 2011/09/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/Suppl_55/p3764.abstract N2 - Background: CAT is a new, patient completed, questionnaire designed to provide a simple and reliable measure of health status in COPD. The CAT has been validated against other measures of quality of life and outcomes of COPD (Jones P et al, ERJ 2009;34:648-54). However, its ability to improve the dialogue between patient and physicians has not been evaluated. We set out to design a study to assess the impact of CAT on the quality of the consultation between a primary care physician (PCP) and COPD patient.Methods: The CAT in Primary Care Study is a randomised, parallel group study conducted in 5 European countries. 160 PCPs without a working knowledge of CAT are recruited to the study. Each PCP completes 6 videoed consultations with standardised COPD patients (professional actors). PCPs are randomised to the CAT arm: with patient notes and CAT available in the consultations; or the non-CAT arm: with just the patient notes available.Cases were developed to include usual patient issues, which the actors were trained not to proactively raise with the PCP. The cases and their CAT scores were independently verified.Assessments are conducted by independent physicians. Each assessor will review 4 test cases for benchmarking. The assessments are based on the PCPs ability to identify, understand and manage the patient issues (A) and whether they reviewed key typical COPD issues (B). The primary endpoint of the study is the comparison of the assessment score (A+B) between the arms. The study has >90% power to detect a 3 point (out of 40) difference between the arms.A pilot study was successfully conducted with 10 PCPs to confirm the feasibility of the study. The study is ongoing and results are expected late 2011. ER -