Aristeia - Abreviate

Welcome to the webpage of ARISTEIA - ABREVIATE project

The research programme “Applying effective and Beneficial strategies to REduce unscheduled and urgent VIsits of patients with chronic physical illnesses to AccidenT and Emergency departments” is co-funded by the European Union - European Social Fund - ESF and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education and Religious Affairs through the Operational Programme “Education and Lifelong Learning” of NSRF (National Strategic Reference Framework) (Programme No: 1259, Protocol No: 9380/7-9-2011).

People with chronic physical illnesses often seek medical help in the evenings or at weekends because their condition is worsening. This programme aims to understand the need for this out-of-hours care and assess whether the need may be reduced if more comprehensive routine care is developed.

About 20-25% of people with chronic physical illness also have marked anxiety or depression, which is associated with increased need for unscheduled care, and about 50% of people who seek frequent urgent care have depression. These emotional difficulties often do not receive the attention they merit. We will test whether appropriate help with these emotional difficulties leads to less demand for unscheduled care. To do this we plan to perform a series of studies in three phases.

In Phase 1 we will collect information from people with 3 chronic illnesses: diabetes, rheumatologic disorders and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, to see which of them use unscheduled or urgent care over the subsequent 12 months.

In Phase 2 we will develop a clinical prediction rule to identify the people who frequently seek unscheduled help to cope with their illness. We will carry out a series of in-depth interviews with patients and their families. This will enable us to understand more precisely why patients and their families or carers use unscheduled care.

In Phase 3 we will introduce a new form of low-intensity interventions which will have been developed from the work carried out in Phases 1 & 2, aimed at helping people cope with their illness better. We will see whether this intervention leads to people using unscheduled care less often as they have increased confidence in their ability to manage their own illness.This programme is expected to demonstrate the beneficial effect of introducing the clinical prediction rule care intervention into the Greek Accident & Emergency Departments.The expectation of the research team is that work from this study will inform clinical practice and policy.

Principal Investigator (PI)

Thomas Hyphantis, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Ioannina

Research Group

Francis Creed, Professor of Psychological Medicine, University of Manchester, UK
Elspeth Guthrie, Professor of Psychological Medicine and Medical Psychotherapy, UK
Andre F. Carvalho, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Ceara, Fortaleza, Brazil
Alexandros A. Drosos, Professor of Rheumatology, University of Ioannina
Stavros Constantopoulos, Professor of Pneumonology, University of Ioannina
Athina Tatsioni, Assistant Professor of General Medicine, University of Ioannina
Vassiliki Paika, PhD Psychologist, Post-doctoral fellow, University of Ioannina
Nickolas Theocharopoulos, MD Psychiatrist, Doc fellow, University of Ioannina
Angeliki Ninou, MSc Psychologist, Doc fellow, University of Ioannina

Scientific Collaborators

Kurt Kroenke, Professor of Medicine, Indiana University, USA
Elisavet Ntountoulaki, Doc fellow, University of Ioannina
Argiro - Irene Pappas, Doc fellow, University of Ioannina
Panagiota Goulia, Psychiatrist - Geriatric Psychiatrist, University of Ioannina
Kostas Kotsis, PhD Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, University of Ioannina
Eugenia Papatheodorou, Psychiatrist, University of Ioannina
Aggeliki Zeri, Medical School Student, University of Ioannina
Katerina Theofilopoulou, Medical School Student, University of Ioannina
Katerina Loutou, Medical School Student, University of Ioannina

(Programme No: 1259, Protocol No: 9380/7-9-2011)