PROCARD

Despite decreases in mortality rates and improved treatment methods, 450 000 Norwegians live with a chronic cardiovascular disease with implications for patients, clinicians, healthcare systems and the society at large. Patient-reported outcomes combined with clinical outcomes measures forms the foundation for shared decision-making and have received increasing awareness.

The use of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are increasingly used in research studies and are frequently combined with clinical outcome measures. Therefore, patients’ experiences are important in our research. The goal is to promote a patient centred care and treatment where patients actively collaborate on decision-making regarding their own health. This is in line with political strategies related to user involvement in the healthcare services.

More about PROCARD

PROCARD is a research group that was established in 2009, and is chaired by professor Tone M. Norekvål. Our research is related to the following main areas:

1. Quality of life, self-reported physical and psychological health, health literacy, frailty, sleep, and delirium.
2. Adherence to lifestyle and treatment advice
3. Satisfaction with use of, and shared decision-making between, healthcare services
4. Healthcare personnel’s adherence to local and international guidelines

We investigate how patients experience continuity of care in both primary and secondary healthcare services, as well as reasons for non-adherence to treatment advice. The majority of patients diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are unable to reduce all known risk factors for CVD. Moreover, a large proportion of patients are unable to reach treatment goals regarding physical activity, smoking cessation, blood pressure or cholesterol levels. The reasons for this are multifaceted and interrelated.

We use qualitative and quantitative methods, data from national health registries, and data from large national and international cohort studies to investigate how patients experience acute and critical illness and how they live with their CVD. In addition, we perform systematic reviews and validate instruments for collection of PROs. This forms the foundation for intervention studies to test interventions to be used in patient treatment. Furthermore, we strive to improve resource utilization and shared decision-making to reduce a potential gap between research and clinical practice. Our close proximity to the clinical field ensures that our research is based on relevant clinical research questions.