Study Results
The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.
Basic Information
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COMPLETED
227 participants
OBSERVATIONAL
2017-09-01
2018-07-01
Brief Summary
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Detailed Description
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Questionnaires
The Trainer Questionnaire will be sent to training organisations via email and will request the following information:
* Number of active working dogs.
* Dog demographic information and selection criteria.
* The type of patient inclusion criteria they use
* Training methods used.
* For SRD that spontaneously started anticipating seizures: information about further training that may have been provided.
The questionnaire directed to epilepsy patients owning dogs will be accessible from our website and will collect the following information:
* Demographic information
* Information about the seizures
* Type of dog: SAD or spontaneously alerting SRD or pet dog
* Approximate date when the dog started alerting, if it's an untrained dog.
* Demographic information about the dog.
* Type of alerting behaviour.
* Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire refined (MCPQ-R): Defines 5 traits of dog personalities.
* The Monash Dog-Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS) ) that studies the perceived bond between the patient and the dog. It consists of 28 items with a score ranging from 1 to 5 that characterizes the emotional closeness, the dog-owner interaction and the perceive costs of dog ownership (Only for patients older than 18 year old)
Recruitment
Collaboration with epilepsy research groups has been stablished inside and outside the EU (Belgium, UK, US, Italy\< Germany and Spain).
A systematic online search was performed to identify all SRD and SAD training organisations across the world. These organisations were contacted via email and telephone (see email example document) and asked to participate in the study by completing the trainer questionnaire and by distributing information about the study and an invitation to participate between their clients.
To reach epileptic owners of non-trained dogs that presumably alert, the following organisations were contacted:
* Epilepsy support organizations.
* Medical non-profit organisations
* Social media groups and forums.
* neurology departments and epilepsy centers
Milestones
* To create an international database of alerting dogs (SAD and spontaneously alerting SRD and pet dogs) to be used in subsequent work packages.
* Descriptive analysis of the population of alerting dogs and their owners.
* A description of the human-dog relationship between epileptic patients and their dog (separated according to whether the dog is one that alerts or not). A description of "Personality traits" of alerting and non-alerting dogs.
Conditions
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Keywords
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Study Design
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OTHER
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Study Groups
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Dog owners with epilepsy
Epilepsy patients that own one or more dogs.
Questionnaire for Dog owners
Questionnaire directed to epileptic patients, parents of epileptic children and legal representatives of epileptic patients with intellectual disabilities. It includes questions about demographics, epilepsy diagnosis, seizures, the behavior of their dogs around the time they have a seizure and a validates scale to measure dog personality traits.
Training organisations
Trainers of seizure response and seizure alerting dogs.
Questionnaire for Dog trainers
Questionnaire for seizure response and seizure alert dog trainers including information on number of active working dogs, dog demographic information and selection criteria, the type of patient inclusion criteria they use, training methods used.
Interventions
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Questionnaire for Dog owners
Questionnaire directed to epileptic patients, parents of epileptic children and legal representatives of epileptic patients with intellectual disabilities. It includes questions about demographics, epilepsy diagnosis, seizures, the behavior of their dogs around the time they have a seizure and a validates scale to measure dog personality traits.
Questionnaire for Dog trainers
Questionnaire for seizure response and seizure alert dog trainers including information on number of active working dogs, dog demographic information and selection criteria, the type of patient inclusion criteria they use, training methods used.
Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria
* Children (\< 18 years) that have been diagnosed with epilepsy and live with a dog; represented by the parents
* Epilepsy patients with intellectual disabilities that live with a dog; represented by their legal representative
Exclusion Criteria
18 Years
ALL
No
Sponsors
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University Ghent
OTHER
University Hospital, Ghent
OTHER
Responsible Party
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Principal Investigators
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Christel Moons, PhD
Role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University
Locations
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Department of Neurology - Ghent University Hospital
Ghent, Flanders, Belgium
Countries
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References
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Dwyer, F., Bennett, P.C., Coleman, G.J., 2006. Development of the Monash Dog Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS). Anthrozoos 19, 243-256.
Kirton A, Wirrell E, Zhang J, Hamiwka L. Seizure-alerting and -response behaviors in dogs living with epileptic children. Neurology. 2004 Jun 22;62(12):2303-5. doi: 10.1212/wnl.62.12.2303.
Ley, J.M., Bennett, P.C., Coleman, G.J., 2009a. A refinement and validation of the Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire (MCPQ). Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. 116, 220-227
Inter-rater and test-retest reliability of the Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire-Revised (MCPQ-R)
Provided Documents
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Document Type: Study Protocol
Document Type: Informed Consent Form
Other Identifiers
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EC/2017/0934
Identifier Type: -
Identifier Source: org_study_id