Clinical trials

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and is strongly associated with obesity and excess body fat. Lifestyle interventions, including exercise and dietary modification, may reduce AF burden, but long-term randomized controlled trial evidence with objective AF burden assessment and advanced cardiac imaging is limited. The MOVE-AF trial is a randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate whether a 12-month tailored exercise and dietary lifestyle intervention, compared with usual care, reduces atrial fibrillation burden and symptom severity and decreases cardiac and total body fat mass in overweight and obese adults with paroxysmal or persistent AF.

The goal of this clinical trial is to prospectively investigate the evolution of lesions in biparametric magnetic resonance imaging (bpMRI) of the prostate in men with no clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa) in their initial biopsy. The main questions it aims to answer are: Does lesion progression in bpMRI predict a diagnosis of csPCa in per-protocol follow-up biopsies? What are the radiological and clinical risk factors for csPCa in per-protocol follow-up biopsies?

The study evaluates the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the outreach work of psychiatric registered nurses (RN) and the experiences of professionals in the field. The service is provided in school environment. First, the study will assess the effectiveness of brief interventions provided by psychiatric outreach nurses on the perceived mental health and quality of life of adolescents (12-16 year old pupils) and their use of social and health services, compared to the support/treatment provided by conventional student welfare services at 6 and 12 months follow-up. The intervention is an outreach service provided by psychiatric nurses. In the intervention, the psychiatric registered nurse will implement interventions such as usual care, discussion, psychoeducation, substance abuse skills and various methods (such as interpersonal psychotherapy = IPT-N and Cool Kids) and motivational interviewing. Secondly, an economic evaluation of the service will be carried out at 6 and 12 months follow-up. The economic evaluation will be carried out from the perspective of the Wellbeing Services County, including the costs of implementing the intervention model and its effects on adolescents' use of student welfare services as well as other social and health services. Primarily, the economic evaluation will use quality-weighted life years as a measure of effectiveness. Also analysis using depression, anxiety and substance use measures will be conducted. Thirdly, the study will explore the experiences of psychiatric nurses implementing the service as well as the experiences of their collaborators in schools (public health nurses, school social workers, psychologists, doctors and teachers) about the service and its implementation.

The aim of the Stop Diabetes - Knowledge based solutions (StopDia) consortium project (University of Eastern Finland, National Institute for Health and Welfare, and Technical Research Centre of Finland) is to develop and test approaches to identify individuals at increased risk of type 2 diabetes and to empower them in adopting and maintaining a healthy lifestyle by combining individual and environment level strategies into a dual-process approach targeting deliberative and automatic processes of behavior. We also aim to identify barriers and facilitators of adopting a healthy lifestyle in the society, create a model for the prevention of type 2 diabetes by joint actions of health care, third sector, and other societal actors, and develop methods to monitor the cost-effectiveness of these actions. We will carry out a 1-year randomized controlled trial on the effects of among 10 000 individuals aged 18-70 years at increased risk of type 2 diabetes living in Finland. The participants will be randomized into the control group, the digital lifestyle intervention group, or the combined digital and face-to-face lifestyle intervention group. The aim of the interventions is to enhance diet quality, increase physical activity, decrease body weight, and improve glucose tolerance in individuals at increased risk of type 2 diabetes.