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“We’re All in this Together”: Peer-specialist Contributions to a Healthy Lifestyle Intervention for People with Serious Mental Illness

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Abstract

This qualitative study explored peer specialists’ contributions to a healthy lifestyle intervention for obese/overweight individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) living in supportive housing. Intervention participants, peer specialists, and supervisors were interviewed and a grounded model emerged from the data identifying essential interpersonal attributes of the peer specialist-participant relationship. Peer specialists’ disclosure of their own experiences making health behaviors changes was critical for building participants’ motivation and ability to try lifestyle changes. Findings can inform peer specialist training and practice standards and facilitate the expansion of peer-delivered interventions to improve the physical health of people with SMI.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Adriana Bastardas-Albero for her assistance with data management and express our gratitude to the intervention participants, supervisors, and peer specialists who participated in this project.

Funding

This study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (Grant No. R01MH104574).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, Columbia University, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY, 10027, USA

    Lauren Bochicchio

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, 1051 Riverside Dr., Rm 6203, New York, NY, 10031, USA

    Ana Stefancic & Kristen Gurdak

  3. Collaborative Support Programs of New Jersey, Rutgers Behavioral Health Care, 11 Spring Street, Freehold, NJ, 07728, USA

    Margaret Swarbrick

  4. George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus Box 1196, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA

    Leopoldo J. Cabassa

Authors
  1. Lauren Bochicchio
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  2. Ana Stefancic
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  3. Kristen Gurdak
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  4. Margaret Swarbrick
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  5. Leopoldo J. Cabassa
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leopoldo J. Cabassa.

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All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Bochicchio, L., Stefancic, A., Gurdak, K. et al. “We’re All in this Together”: Peer-specialist Contributions to a Healthy Lifestyle Intervention for People with Serious Mental Illness. Adm Policy Ment Health 46, 298–310 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-018-0914-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-018-0914-6

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