A Randomised Trial of How Hospital Patients and Health Care Professionals Judge that Being Restricted to Taking Fluids of Different Consistencies Would Affect Their Quality of Life

INTERVENTION: Subjects will be allocated, based on odd and even numbers in a list of random numbers, to drink 250 ml of either mildly (nectar‐like) or moderately thick (honey‐like) water. Time trade utilities will be elicited using a time trade‐off approach using a 10 year life expectancy. CONDITION: Dysphagia ; Signs and Symptoms PRIMARY OUTCOME: Individual subject utilities will be elicited in face to face interviews. The average (median as non‐parametric analysis planned) utility in each of the randomised groups will be compared. SECONDARY OUTCOME: 1. Average utilities will be compared between patient and professional groups; 2. The effect if any of age and gender on subject utilities will be examined; 3. The amount of the sample of thickened fluid that each subject drank will be recorded as less than a third, between one and two thirds and more than two thirds; 4. The relationship between the volume consumed and the subsequent utility rating of subjects will be analysed INCLUSION CRITERIA: Group 1: Consecutive patients admitted to the medical wards of a 600‐bed university teaching hospital, who were judged by medical and nursing staff to be clinically stable and fit to be interviewed. Group 2: A convenience sample of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals working on the medical wards of the hospital or on an associated rehabilitation unit.