Peer-delivered and Technology-Assisted Integrated Illness Management and Recovery

Plain-language summary

Adults with serious mental illness (SMI) are disproportionately affected by medical comorbidity, earlier onset of disease, and 10 to 25 years reduced life expectancy compared to the general population. These high rates of morbidity and early mortality are associated with inadequately managed medical and psychiatric illnesses. A recent systematic review found nine effective self-management interventions that address medical and psychiatric illnesses in adults with SMI. However, there has been limited adoption of these interventions due to both provider and consumer-based factors. Provider-based barriers consist of the lack of an adequate workforce with the capacity, time, and knowledge of effective approaches to self-management support for adults with SMI and chronic health conditions. Consumer-based barriers associated with limited participation in self-management programs include lack of access, engagement, and ongoing community-based support for persons with SMI. Peer support specialists have the potential to address these barriers as they comprise one of the fastest growing sectors of the mental health workforce, have "lived experience" in self-management practices, and offer access to support in the community. However, challenges need to be resolved for peers to be effective providers of evidence-based interventions. For example, peers are frequently trained to provide "peer support" described as "giving and receiving help founded on key principles of respect, shared responsibility, and mutual agreement of what is helpful". Peer support has been associated with increased sense of control, ability to make changes, and decreased psychiatric symptoms. Despite benefits, peer support does not adhere to evidence-based practices for psychiatric and medical self-management and does not follow protocols that ensure fidelity and systematically monitor outcomes. The investigators hypothesize that mobile technology has the potential to overcome these limitations of peer support by providing real-time guidance in fidelity adherent delivery of a peer-delivered, technology-assisted evidence-based self-management intervention (PDTA-IIMR). The investigator will build the necessary expertise to pursue a career developing and testing novel approaches to peer-delivered evidence-based self-management interventions. Training will include: development of peer-delivered interventions; development and design of mobile health-supported interventions; and intervention clinical trials research. Concurrently, this study includes refinement of the intervention protocol with input from peers and consumers and conducting a pilot study evaluating the feasibility and potential effectiveness of PDTA-IIMR compared to routine peer support for N=6 peers and N=40 adults with SMI and chronic health conditions. Outcomes include feasibility, medical and psychiatric self-management skills, functional ability, and mortality risk factors and examine self-efficacy and social support as mechanisms on outcomes.

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