“It Makes You Feel Good to Help!”: An Exploratory Study of the Experience of Peer Mentoring in Long-Term Care

Abstract

Social isolation and loneliness in long-term care settings are a growing concern. Drawing on concepts of social citizenship, we developed a peer mentoring program in which resident mentors and volunteers formed a team, met weekly for training, and paired up to visit isolated residents. In this article, we explore the experiences of the resident mentors. As part of a larger mixed-methods study conducted in 10 sites in Canada, we interviewed mentors (n = 48) and analysed data using inductive thematic analysis. We identified three inter-related themes: Helping others, helping ourselves described the personal benefits experienced through adopting a helping role; Building a bigger social world encapsulated new connections with those visited, and; Facing challenges, learning together described how mentors dealt with challenges as a team. Our findings suggest that a structured approach to mentoring benefits residents and helps them feel confident taking on a role supporting their isolated peers.

Addressing loneliness and social isolation through the involvement of primary and secondary informal caregivers in nursing homes: a scoping review

“…Other studies reported introducing therapeutic or leisure activities into nursing homes (n = 11), such as music-and art-based activities [51][52][53][54][55], intergenerational visiting programmes [56][57][58] and peer-mentoring [59][60][61]. The remaining articles described changes in the management, living arrangements and philosophy of care at nursing homes (n = 5), including a multi-componential strategy [62], a plan on how to design and execute an integrated intervention [63], the Eden Alternative programme [64] and reports on intergenerational living arrangements [65,66].…”

“…Visits included regular phone calls with university students [46] and video calls with schoolchildren [40]. Furthermore, a peermentoring programme arranged visits between community and resident mentors and cognitively impaired resident mentees [59][60][61]. Three studies described interventions establishing leisure activities, such as seasonal activities with university students [56], gardening, food preparation and related social events with schoolchildren [57].…”

“…Residents might especially be able to provide company and peer support to each if engaged in meaningful collective activities [16,79]. Working with the distinction of social and emotional loneliness can especially shed light on the mechanisms of those interventions which combine meaningful activities with the creation of new social relationships [59][60][61].…”