CLOSER MS

Study Team

Co-PIs: Sara Douglas, Matthew Plow, Tanya Packer
Additional Team Members: Julie Hewitt, Michelle Lehman, Sabrena Jaswal, Ioan Cocan, Amy Lipson

Study Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced healthcare systems to quickly shift away from traditional in-person care and towards telehealth services. This transition has shed light on the invisible backbone of the healthcare system: unpaid care partners. Care partners have become more important than ever as they support virtual care and replace reduced healthcare services. To make an already stressful situation even more difficult, care partners are often caring for people who are at higher risk for severe COVID-19 illness. These high levels of stress associated with being a care partner can result in depression, anxiety, and worse health outcomes for both themselves and the care recipient. It is therefore imperative that care partners receive the care and support they require. Very little research has been done to examine how care partners can be best supported, therefore, the purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness of two telehealth intervention protocols aimed at supporting care partners of people living with multiple sclerosis (MS). The two interventions being studied include a low-resource protocol where participants have access to an informative website, as well as a high-resource, highly tailored tele-coaching intervention delivered by an advanced practice social worker paired with access to the informative website. The main outcomes being examined will be care partners’ anxiety, depression, stress, and/or COVID specific anxiety. The CLOSER MS study is being conducted in the United States and is a collaborative effort between researchers at Dalhousie University and Case Western Reserve University.

Funding Source

This project is funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) for the amount of $5,359,759.00 over 5 years.