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Trial registered on ANZCTR

Registration number

ACTRN12624000094572

Ethics application status

Approved

Date submitted

22/12/2023

Date registered

2/02/2024

Date last updated

2/02/2024

Date data sharing statement initially provided

2/02/2024

Date results provided

2/02/2024

Type of registration

Retrospectively registered

Titles & IDs

Public title

From minds to mindsets: drowning interventions and a pathway to the population-scale impacts

Scientific title

Assessing the impact of relationship building between lifeguards and beachgoers on beach behavior through the delivery of skill development sessions on the beach.

Secondary ID [1]

None

Universal Trial Number (UTN)

Trial acronym

Linked study record

Health condition

Health condition(s) or problem(s) studied:

Drowning

Condition category

Condition code

Public Health

Health promotion/education

Injuries and Accidents

Other injuries and accidents

Intervention/exposure

Study type

Interventional

Description of intervention(s) / exposure

Existing interventions for drowning prevention presume that awareness translates into changed behaviors and rely on ineffective mass communications to progress from individual- to population-scale impact. The quasi-experimental intervention developed here uses a 20-minute beach safety lesson delivered by lifeguards at the beach on the topics of: what the beach safety flags mean, how to identify a rip current, how to safely escape a rip current, and how to safely perform a bystander rescue. Lessons are delivered three times a day at 11am, 1 pm and 3 pm. There will be 10 participants in each lesson. Each participant in the intervention (i.e., lesson) is expected to have attended one lesson and participated in a meaningful engagement that is designed to encourage active reflection that can generate learning and the adoption of risk mitigation behaviors that spillover to non-participants and to other contexts. In our engagements, ‘active processing’ is oriented towards ‘the self’, asking participants to actively consider their own perceptions and behaviors in the context of having just experienced a lesson situated on the beach concerning drowning prevention. Our contention is that external efforts to convince participants through appeals to sympathy might be improved through active personal perspective-experiences, and that reflection on personal experience offers a more situated and persuasive impact pathway towards lasting adoption of drowning prevention behaviors. Strategies used to monitor adherence to the intervention are twofold. The first includes participation in a mixed quantitative survey and qualitative semi-structured interview after participation in the lesson that is designed to assess the impact of the lesson. The second is by conducting follow-up interviews six months following the intervention to assess the impact of the lesson, over time.

Intervention code [1]

Behaviour

Intervention code [2]

Prevention

Comparator / control treatment

A control sample will also be collected in the same location in the two days following the intervention, with those participants engaged using the same approach, including follow-up interviews six months later. The control sample will however not participate in a safety lesson. The main difference is intervention group will participate in a safety lesson and the control sample will not. This is because we want to assess the impact of participation in a safety lesson on beach going behavior (i.e., intervention) with those who do not (i.e., control).

Control group

Active

Outcomes

Primary outcome [1]

A composite primary outcome is a change in drowning prevention knowledge and rip current risk knowledge

Assessment method [1]

After participation in the lesson, beachgoers were invited to participate in a 10-15 min audio recorded survey-interview engagement. Survey-interviews are one-on-one and semi-structured. Quantitative 10-point Likert scale ratings were paired with qualitative interview questions that requested participants to describe, for example, ‘how’ their experience in the lesson will affect their behaviors. Quantitative survey data was collected using Qualtrics, which is a bespoke web-application that allows survey questions to be answered directly via a secure website, while qualitative responses to paired semi-structured interview questions were simultaneously audio recorded and transcribed using the transcription service Otter.AI on a mobile phone.
The engagements ask participants to actively reflect on their past, present, and future understandings of beach risk, including specific questions concerning: risk taking appetites, awareness of conditions, awareness of recent drownings, past experience(s) with risk on beaches, present assessment of risk and risk mitigation on beaches, likely future behaviors, and ending with demographics. With regard to the lesson, participants were asked whether: they had learned anything, found the lesson enjoyable, were likely to alter their beachgoing behaviors, and whether they had suggestions to improve any aspect of the lesson. Lastly, participants were asked for permission to ‘check in’ with them in 4-6 months later during a follow-up interview.
For the control, a slightly modified version of the engagement was delivered, retaining the philosophical commitment to meaningful engagement and active reflection, but removing reference to the lesson (we did check to ensure that they had not participated in the previous days). Identical questions were replicated whenever possible. This model of engagement had been applied during the first phase of the research, demonstrating impacts on perceptions and behaviors, which allows this analysis to compare the effects of the lesson as evidenced in differences between participants and the control.
Learning or change in drowning prevention knowledge and rip current risk knowledge will be measured using Baird, Julia, et. al. (2014) Typology of Learning: cognitive, normative learning and relational learning. Reference for article is below. Baird, Julia, et al. "Learning effects of interactive decision-making processes for climate change adaptation." Global Environmental Change 27 (2014): 51-63.
Learning is assessed immediately after the intervention and then again during a follow-up interview 6 months after the intervention.

Timepoint [1]

Learning about drowning prevention and rip current risk will be immediately assessed after the intervention and then assessed again during a follow-up interview 6 months after the intervention.

Secondary outcome [1]

A composite secondary outcome is a change in drowning prevention knowledge, rip current risk knowledge and behavior

Timepoint [1]

Learning about drowning prevention, rip current risk and behavior change is assessed immediately after the engagement but for this secondary outcome, learning and behavior change will be assessed during a follow-up interview 6 months after the intervention.

Eligibility

Key inclusion criteria

For the intervention, consenting beach-goers that are 18 years old or older and participated in the safety lesson.

Participants in the control must be consenting beach-goers that are 18 years old or older that did not participate in the safety lesson.

Minimum age

18 Years

Maximum age

No limit

Sex

Both males and females

Can healthy volunteers participate?

Yes

Key exclusion criteria

None

Study design

Purpose of the study

Prevention

Allocation to intervention

Non-randomised trial

Procedure for enrolling a subject and allocating the treatment (allocation concealment procedures)

Methods used to generate the sequence in which subjects will be randomised (sequence generation)

Masking / blinding

Who is / are masked / blinded?

Intervention assignment

Other design features

Phase

Not Applicable

Type of endpoint/s

Safety

Statistical methods / analysis

Recruitment

Recruitment status

Completed

Date of first participant enrolment

Anticipated

Actual

5/01/2023

Date of last participant enrolment

Anticipated

Actual

5/01/2023

Date of last data collection

Anticipated

Actual

9/01/2023

Sample size

Target

100

Accrual to date

Final

Recruitment in Australia

Recruitment state(s)

VIC

Funding & Sponsors

Funding source category [1]

University

Name [1]

University of Melbourne

Address [1]

University of Melbourne, 207 Bouverie street, Parkville, VIC, 3052

Country [1]

Australia

Funding source category [2]

Other Collaborative groups

Name [2]

Life Saving Victoria

Address [2]

200 The Blvd, Port Melbourne VIC 3207

Country [2]

Australia

Primary sponsor type

Other Collaborative groups

Name

Surf Life Saving Australia

Address

Level 1, 1 Notts Ave Bondi Beach, NSW 2026

Country

Australia

Secondary sponsor category [1]

Other Collaborative groups

Name [1]

Life Saving Victoria

Address [1]

200 The Blvd, Port Melbourne VIC 3207

Country [1]

Australia

Ethics approval

Ethics application status

Approved

Ethics committee name [1]

University of Melbourne Human Research Ethics Committee

Ethics committee address [1]

The University of Melbourne,  Grattan Street, Parkville Victoria, 3010

Ethics committee country [1]

Australia

Date submitted for ethics approval [1]

10/06/2022

Approval date [1]

09/09/2022

Ethics approval number [1]

22989

Summary

Brief summary

The research team partnered with Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA), Life Saving Victoria (LSV), and local council to co-design a learning-focused intervention. Learning had been identified through a pilot study conducted in 2021, in which beachgoers requested skills and opportunities for learning from the beach safety sector. The themes and best practices to be covered in the lesson were drawn from the pilot study, the literature, and then discussed amongst the research team and representatives of the risk sector, including those overseeing lifeguards in the case study region. The lifeguards to participate in the lesson were invited to contribute to these discussions but, being predominantly young university students, were unavailable. A finalized list of 19 actions were identified and incorporated into development of the lesson and into the codebook for measuring impact.

Trial website

Trial related presentations / publications

Public notes

Contacts

Principal investigator

Name

A/Prof Brian Cook

Address

University of Melbourne, 207 Bouverie street, Parkville, VIC 3053

Country

Australia

Phone

+61 3 9035 8370

Fax

[email protected]

Contact person for public queries

Name

Peter Kamstra

Address

University of Melbourne, 207 Bouverie street, Parkville, VIC 3053

Country

Australia

Phone

+61 3 9035 5511

Fax

[email protected]

Contact person for scientific queries

Name

Peter Kamstra

Address

207 Bouverie street, Parkville, VIC 3053

Country

Australia

Phone

+61 3 9035 5511

Fax

[email protected]

Data sharing statement

Will individual participant data (IPD) for this trial be available (including data dictionaries)?

No/undecided IPD sharing reason/comment

Once data has been de-identified, it will be available to participants and via public facing reports and peer-reviewed publications.

What supporting documents are/will be available?

No Supporting Document Provided

Results publications and other study-related documents

Documents added manually

No documents have been uploaded by study researchers.

Documents added automatically

No additional documents have been identified.

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