Approved research

Application to Contact Patients regarding Treatment In Morning vs Evening (TIME) Study

Lay summary

To determine if taking once a day anti-hypertensive medication is more efficacious taken in the evening compared with the morning. If a change to evening dosing is more efficacious than usual morning dosing and is acceptably safe then this would be of major benefit to public health. Hypertension is widespread throughout the population and thus if TIME can help establish if there is an optimum time for anti-hypertensive dosing then this will have a significant impact on improving patient care in this area across the whole of the UK. A pilot-phase has recruited ~400 participants via general-practices, using letters, emails and posters (about 1 per 30 invitations). We would like to boost recruitment to the study through inviting UKB participants to join if they fulfil the eligibility criteria (those who currently take blood pressure tablets once a day). We suggest inviting UKB participants who have self-reported hypertension at baseline. These invitations would be sent by email. If this insufficient we may invite further participants by letter. About 10,000 patients are required to ensure the study is powered sufficiently. The power calculations undertaken to reach this figure are detailed in section 12 of the TIME Study protocol. If the study recruits more participants than this target then follow up time should be reduced allowing the study to report earlier, which would be advantageous. We hope that the UKB resource could help us to achieve this outcome.