N/A
N=35
Digital Prehabilitation for Patients Undergoing Major Elective Surgery
Surgery
Bottom Line
View on ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT06137781 ↗Enrolled (actual)
35
Serious AEs
5.7%
Results posted
Dec 2025
Primary outcome: Primary: Number of Participants Recruited — 35 Participants
Study Design & Population
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- N/A
- Interventions
- Six weeks of digital prehabilitation (Behavioral)
- Age
- Adult, Older Adult · 50+ yrs
- Sex
- All
- Sponsor
- Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust
- Primary completion
- Sep 2024
Outcome Measures
| Outcome | Result | p-value |
|---|---|---|
| PRIMARY Number of Participants Recruited |
35 | — |
| PRIMARY Number of Participants Interested in Participating |
39 | — |
| PRIMARY Number of Participants That Passed Screening |
35 | — |
| PRIMARY Number of Adherent Participants |
21 | — |
| PRIMARY Percentage of Compliant Exercise Sessions |
79 | — |
| PRIMARY Number of Participants Retained |
24 | — |
| SECONDARY Cardiorespiratory Fitness |
0.3; 0.0 | — |
| SECONDARY Resting Blood Pressure |
1; 1 | — |
| SECONDARY Resting Heart Rate |
-2 | — |
| SECONDARY Physical Activity Level |
852 | — |
| SECONDARY Anxiety and Depression |
-1; -1 | — |
| SECONDARY Quality of Life EQ-5D Visual Analogue Scale |
5 | — |
| SECONDARY 1-minute Sit-to-stand Test |
11 | — |
Summary
Prehabilitation describes the process of improving someone's functional capacity before major surgery. Prehabilitation commonly focuses on exercise training, as fitness level is a predictor of surgical outcomes - the fitter you are before surgery, the lower the risk of complications after surgery. Typically, exercise training is done at the hospital, but research shows that patients would prefer to do prehabilitation exercises in their home.
The goal of this study is to test the feasibility of an online prehabilitation programme made by PreActiv, which can be accessed at home via a website by patients who are awaiting major surgery. PreActiv's prehabilitation programme is six weeks long, and involves three 35-minute exercise sessions per week, with each session including a warm-up, cardio exercises, muscle strengthening exercises, and breathing exercises. Information from this pilot study on the number of exercise sessions attended (adherence) and the number of patients who complete the study (retention) will be used to decide whether we should progress to a larger study that assesses the effectiveness of PreActiv's prehabilitation.
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria
- Planned for major elective surgery ≥10 weeks from time of recruitment Major or complex surgery examples in NICE guideline NG45 'Routine preoperative tests for elective surgery' provides appropriate examples that are relevant to the patient cohort at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust (RUH). We have extrapolated from these examples a list of surgical procedures that qualify as major or complex surgery and are carried out at the RUH. This list is not exhaustive but provides a range of procedures that are applicable for example: laparotomy, joint replacement, total abdominal hysterectomy, nephrectomy, neck dissection, parotidectomy, endoscopic resection of prostate, thyroidectomy.
- Aged ≥50 years
Exclusion Criteria
- Surgery scheduled in <10 weeks
- Any relative or absolute contraindications to undertake an exercise test as described by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM, 2022) and the American Heart Association (Fletcher et al., 2013)
- Unsuitable to increase physical activity level as determined by Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q)
- Uncontrolled or poorly-controlled lung condition, diabetes, or seizures
- Recent (<12 months) cardiovascular events needing hospital admission
- Ongoing infection or wound making this programme hazardous for the patient
- Unable to access technology required to use the PreActiv digital platform
- Currently meeting World Health Organisation (WHO) physical activity guidelines of 75- 300 minutes of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity per week, plus twice-weekly muscle strengthening activities
- Unable to understand explanations and/or provide informed consent
- Unable to understand written or spoken English, and without ongoing access to an interpreter
- Any condition and/or behaviour that would pose undue personal risk or introduce bias into the study
- Currently enrolled in another research trial
Data sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT06137781). Outcome figures and adverse-event rates are extracted automatically from the registry's posted results and are provided for clinician reference, not as a substitute for the primary publication.