Motorcycles and breast cancer: The influence of peer support and challenge on distress and posttraumatic growth

Abstract

The results of the current study highlight the potential for challenge-based activities to provide a positive peer support environment for women diagnosed with breast cancer. Identifying factors that promote personal growth and reduce cancer-related distress allow us to create a model for the delivery of these challenge-based peer support activities.

Effect of a school-based nutrition education program on adolescents’ nutrition-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviour in rural areas of China

“…For example, peer support has been found to be effective in increasing breast-feeding duration; improving self-efficacy and well-being in individuals with heart disease; improving fitness, strength, and sport competence for breast cancer survivors; enhancing mental health; and increasing chronic disease management and health-related quality of life [27][28][29][30]. Additionally, peer support is especially vital and influential to adolescents, as they spend increased time with peers, enhancing the potential for the norms and behaviours of peers to influence them [31,32]. While it is true that peers influence each other across the whole life span, the effects of peer influence, however, are stronger during adolescence than other stages of life [33,34].…”

The how and the when of the social cure: A conceptual model of group‐ and individual‐level mechanisms linking social identity to health and well‐being

“…Given the substantial and reliable effects of shared social identity on health and well‐being (Steffens et al, 2017), there is increasing activity aiming to unlock the “social cure”. In past years, several interventions building on the SIA to Health and Well‐being have been developed and implemented in diverse domains and populations, for example, care home residents (Haslam et al, 2010), white‐collar workers (Knight, Haslam, & Haslam, 2010), university students (Haslam, Cruwys, Haslam, Dingle, & Chang, 2016), distressed adults (Haslam, Cruyws, et al, 2019), and women diagnosed with breast cancer (Morris, Chambers, Campbell, Dwyer, & Dunn, 2012). The relevance of the “social cure” is also increasingly acknowledged in clinical contexts (e.g., Cruwys, Haslam, Dingle, Jetten, et al, 2014).…”

“…Most “social cure” interventions aim at building (or strengthening) shared social identities. Traditionally, a key element of such interventions comprises shared activities, providing a group with a mutual goal, and implementing shared values and goals while pursuing this goal (Morris et al, 2012; see Lacerenza, Marlow, Tannenbaum, & Salas, 2018; Martin, Carron, & Burke, 2009; Miller, Kim, Silverman, & Bauer, 2018 for overviews and meta‐analysis). In other words, these intervention programs tend to address group identification and group‐level effects, for example, by providing a frame for the experience of mutual support and mutual success, giving rise to high collective self‐efficacy.…”

The Roles of Support Seeking and Race/Ethnicity in Posttraumatic Growth Among Breast Cancer Survivors

“…Upward social comparison has been linked to increased posttraumatic growth (Morris, Chambers, Campbell, Dwyer, & Dunn, 2011), indicating a mechanism by which peer-support may be linked to more positive assessment of cancer. Support-seeking from other cancer survivors and from healthcare providers may influence PTG, and interventions that facilitate PTG have the potential to improve quality of life and reduce the emotional toll of cancer for some people.…”