•    Principal Investigator/s:                Professor Danny McAuley

•    Name of the Study:                        HARMONISE

•    Why is this Study important?

People who survive a critical illness require special care and support. After leaving hospital they can experience many significant problems including weakness, depression, and memory changes, commonly known as post-intensive care syndrome (PICS). Much of the previous research on supporting people following hospital discharge has focused on trying to find the best rehabilitation strategy to address PICS. 
People may also suffer from new or worsening of existing medical problems, which can deteriorate and lead to worse quality of life, another admission to hospital or death. People with multiple medical conditions have worse outcomes after a critical illness. They may struggle to manage their medical conditions due to PICS. Management of the new and existing medical conditions is made more challenging by associated medications and social problems such as the impact of the critical illness on their job and the need for additional support at home from family or carers. The medical problems can also prevent people from being able to take part in rehabilitation programmes. 
If it can be delivered, we will design a clinical trial to test whether it improves the outcomes for patients, including reducing the risk of being readmitted to hospital, and improves quality of life, physical strength, and emotional wellbeing of patients. The programme could be offered across the UK and could lead to improved outcomes for patients.

•    What is the Research question/aim?:  

Working with people with lived experience of critical illness, we have designed a programme, called HARMONISE, which aims to support people with the medical and social problems they experience following discharge home after being in ICU. We also want to find out if the programme can be delivered alongside rehabilitation to address physical and psychological problems after ICU. 

•    What the Study involves:

We are randomly allocating people into two group, standard care where people receive they healthcare they usually would, and the HARMONISE group which receive the 6 week programme. We will determine whether the intervention and study procedures including collection of proposed outcome measures, can be delivered. The outcome measures are completed at 6 weeks and 6 months following hospital discharge via Microsoft Teams. 

•    Who can take part in the Study?

People following discharge home after being in ICU.

•    Contact Information:

         
Dr Jonathan Stewart 
Principal Investigator 
Dr Jonathan Stewart 
Clinical Research Fellows
jstewart52@qub.ac.uk  
Queen’s University Belfast 
BHSCT
As above
07845043006