Spinal Cord Injury & You Study Participants Health Education Impact Questionaire Scores

Wednesday, November 9, 2022

3:32 PM – 3:37 PM

Location: Station 4

Presenting Author(s)

DP

Diana Pernigotti, MSG

Sr. Research Coordinator
Gaylord Hospital - Wallingford, CT
Wallingford, Connecticut, United States

Non-presenting Author(s)

SS

Sarah Skeels, MPH

Trainer, Lead Coach and Co-Investigator
Spinal Cord Injury Association of CT, a Chapter of United Spinal Association
Little Compton, Rhode Island, United States

Research Objectives: To explore how SCI&U study participants rated satisfaction, acceptability, and relevance post-intervention. SCI&U is a virtual health self-management program that utilizes the Peer Health Coaching model to support health, well-being, and enhanced quality of life for those living with spinal cord injury (SCI).

Design: The SCI-Peer Health Coach (PHC) plays a powerful role in promoting health-management among community-dwelling adults with spinal cord injury. PHCs are experienced peer mentors with SCI who are specifically trained to coach others with SCI.

Setting: PHCs used an online platform combining videoconferencing with an SCI health resource library, talking points, and conversation flow charts. Coaching also occurred using smart phones.

Participants: 8 community-dwelling adults 1- 23 years post-traumatic SCI.

Interventions: Person-centered coaching supported participants with identifying and managing barriers related to any health issue they wanted to address. PHCs completed up to 14 coaching calls during 30-45-minute-long scheduled coaching sessions with participants for up to 5 months. PHCs tracked the progress of their peers in setting and reaching their goals on a password protected portal. Peers completed assessments through the secure SCI&U platform post-intervention.

Main Outcome Measures: Participants rated satisfaction, acceptability, and relevance post-intervention using the Health Education Impact Questionnaire (heiQ) measure, which has high construct validity and is a reliable measure of a broad range of patient education program benefits for chronic condition management.

Results: heiQ mean scores averaged 3.7/4 for goal setting, information sharing, relevance, feeling validated, and the coaching relationship.

Conclusions: The SCI&U program was highly valued by program participants. Virtual coaching provided by a PHC is a viable role for future programs that aim to support addressing health needs and increasing the quality of life for the SCI community.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors do not have any conflicts to declare.

Learning Objectives:

describe the SCI&U health self-management program that utilizes the Peer Health Coaching model to support people living with a spinal cord injury
describe how the Health Education Impact Questionnaire scores reported by peers at the end of the study describe their experience
demonstrate the importance of the SCI Peer Health Coach role in supporting peers as they address health needs and increase their quality of life