Graeme Ambler has contacted us to ask if we can spread the word regarding some valuable research. Please do help with this research if you can, it will only take about 15 minutes of your time and could benefit lower limb amputees and people associated with them. The closing date for responses in round 1 is the 28th September so please act quickly if you’d like to take part.
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We are asking for help to define the research agenda for patients undergoing major lower limb amputation as a result of diabetes or peripheral vascular disease.
Outcomes for these people can be dismal, with poor pain control, need for revision surgery, frequent readmissions and poor long-term survival. To improve research efficiency, we are trying to get a clear idea of the most important outcomes for these patients by defining Core Outcome Sets.
Core Outcome Sets are agreed sets of outcomes which should be reported in all studies in a specific area. These are developed by a three-stage process. The first two stages create a long list of possible outcomes, with a consensus survey (Delphi) as the third part. This involves getting the opinions of as many people as possible (patients, carers and healthcare professionals) to establish which items from the long list should be included in a Core Outcome Set.
We have already performed the first two of these phases. We now need to conduct a Delphi survey to establish which items should be considered ‘core’. This is itself a three-round online survey. During testing we have found that one round of the survey usually takes about 15 minutes, so the process is not too onerous.
Closing Date: The closing date for responses in round 1 is September 28th and we need as many responses as possible!
Funding: The study is funded by Health and Care Research Wales and was approved by Wales REC 3 as part of the PLACEMENT trial.
Contact: The web site address for the survey is: https://ctrc.liv.ac.uk/DelphiManager/Amputation-COS Contact details and other information will be found here along with a link enabling you to register for the survey.