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  • 1 October 2018 to 31 July 2020
  • Project No: 434
  • Funding round: FR17

Positive mood on the day of vaccination is associated with a better response to influenza vaccination in older people. We have shown that a 15 minute multi-media digital intervention can enhance positive mood in older people and that it is feasible to implement in primary care during routine vaccine programmes.

We now plan to conduct a trial in which we will compare ‘usual care’ with 3 versions of our intervention in order to identify which intervention improves positive mood the most. Our focus is, therefore, primarily on measuring mood and antibody levels. We wish, however, to move away from this exclusive focus on surrogate outcomes and consider how our interventions affect healthcare (e.g., attendance in primary care, antibiotic prescriptions). The present application will enable us to explore whether it is possible to collect healthcare data accurately in this context and which healthcare measures will be most relevant for a future trial.

We propose to recruit 480 patients attending for their routine influenza vaccination during the 2019 flu season. On the day of their vaccination, patients will be allocated into one of four groups at random:

  • usual care (receive no intervention);
  • current intervention (15 minute multi-media digital intervention) delivered on an individual basis);
  • current intervention delivered in groups of 6-10 patients;
  • individualised version of the intervention (where patients can select the content of the 15 minute intervention).

On the day of vaccination patients will complete a mood measure and provide a blood sample. They will then receive their intervention (or wait for 15 minutes). All participants will then complete the mood measure again and then receive their vaccination. Four and 16 weeks later further blood samples will be taken to assess antibody responses to vaccination. Healthcare data will be collected on all participants for the duration of the flu season (October-February).

Amount awarded: £11 977

Projects by themes

We have grouped projects under the five SPCR themes in this document

Evidence synthesis working group

The collaboration will be conducting 18 high impact systematic reviews, under four workstreams.