Certified Peer Specialists and Older Adults With Serious Mental Illness' Perspectives of the Impact of a Peer-Delivered and Technology-Supported Self-Management Intervention

Abstract

We explored certified peer specialists and older adults with serious mental illness perspectives of the impact of a peer-delivered medical and psychiatric self-management intervention, “PeerTECH”. Transcripts from interviews with consumers with serious mental illness and a focus group with certified peer specialists who were engaged in PeerTECH were analyzed. Consumer participants (N=8) had a mean age of 68.8 years (SD=4.9) and included individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder (5 people), schizophrenia spectrum disorders (2 people), and bipolar disorder (1 person). Certified peer specialists (N=3) were aged 55 years or older. Themes included: internal and external forces of accountability, confidence, internal and external locus of hope, human bonding, and peer support. This exploratory qualitative study found that human support from peers can potentially influence health behavioral change in a combined peer and technology-based medical and psychiatric illness self-management intervention.

The Acceptability and Feasibility of Using Text Messaging to Support the Delivery of Physical Health Care in those Suffering from a Psychotic Disorder: a Review of the Literature

“…Concerning the study types, 18% were qualitative (n = 2) [24,25], 27% were cross-sectional (n = 3) [26][27][28] and 36% were randomised controlled trials (RCTs; n = 4) [29][30][31][32], with 18% classifying for both qualitative and cross-sectional (n = 2) [33,34]. There was large variability in study duration, which ranged from 4 weeks [33] [26].…”

“…One study directly compared one-way versus two-way text messaging [31]. Other studies focused on one-way [26,[28][29][30][31][32]34] or two-way [24,25,31,33] alone. Two-way text messaging was further subdivided into conversing between patient and staff [25,31,33] or peer-to-peer [24].…”

“…The type of text message intervention was characterised into three themes: motivational/reminder, service delivery and social. 91% of the articles incorporated motivational/reminder text messages into the intervention methodology (n = 10) [24][25][26][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. 27% also achieved healthcare service-delivery through text messaging (n = 3) [25,31,33] and 27% further focused on the social aspect of text messaging (n = 3) [24,31,33].…”

“…Non-text messaging technology found within the studies included Facebook groups for peer-to-peer encouragement [30,34], smartphone applications (apps) for progress tracking, messaging services and self-reporting [24,33], and wearable technology to track physical activity and encourage self-reporting [26,30,34].…”

Post‐discharge needs of Iranian women diagnosed with severe mental illness: A qualitative study

“…Researchers have demonstrated the efficacy of utilizing in‐person and technology‐supported (e.g. smartphone) certified peer specialists as a core treatment component (Fortuna et al., 2018; Solomon, 2004). Recently, Fortuna et al (2019) investigated the unmet needs of people diagnosed with SMI from the perspective of certified peer specialists using a mixed method design.…”