BRIDGE: A gentle tool to help families of critically ill kids talk with doctors
Official title: Building Relationship, Improving Dialogue, and Growing Empathy (BRIDGE): An intervention to support decision-making for critically ill children
Funded at Duke University · NIH-11378015 · Data updated 2026-11-12
A 3-site study is testing BRIDGE, a brief tool to help parents of very young children in the ICU make decisions together with their health care team.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Duke University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Durham, United States) |
| Project start | August 1, 2025 |
| Project end | July 31, 2030 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $676,976 |
| NIH project number | 5R01HD118955-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11378015 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Parents of critically ill children under 2 years old who are in the ICU and facing important care decisions.
✕Less likely to help
Families not involved in decision-making processes or those without access to the BRIDGE tools may not experience direct benefit.
What this research studies
If your child is critically ill and in the ICU, BRIDGE offers a short introduction to decision-making, a values exercise, and a list of questions to discuss with the care team. The intervention also invites families to share their responses with clinicians to improve communication about goals, quality of life, and suffering. The study will randomly assign families to use BRIDGE or usual care and will look at whether this improves the quality of decision-making and conversations, with additional analysis to understand what helps or hinders putting BRIDGE into practice. Up to about 300 parents of children under 2 years old across three sites will be included to see how well BRIDGE works in real ICU settings.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, BRIDGE could lead to clearer conversations, better-aligned care with family values, and less decisional conflict for parents.
How similar studies have gone: Previous work suggests that structured decision aids can improve communication and decision quality in critical care settings, but results vary by context.
Where this research is happening
-
Duke University
Durham, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Lemmon, Monica — Duke University
- Study coordinator: Lemmon, Monica
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.