Effectiveness of a peer-based intervention on loneliness and social isolation of older Chinese immigrants in Canada: a r
- PDF / 640,837 Bytes
- 12 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 103 Downloads / 170 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
Effectiveness of a peer-based intervention on loneliness and social isolation of older Chinese immigrants in Canada: a randomized controlled trial Daniel W. L. Lai1* , Jia Li2, Xiaoting Ou2 and Celia Y. P. Li3
Abstract Background: Social isolation is a key concern for immigrant older adults. We examined the effectiveness of a peerbased intervention in reducing loneliness, social isolation, and improving psychosocial well-being with a sample of aging Chinese immigrants. Methods: Sixty community-dwelling older Chinese immigrants aged 65 and older were randomly assigned to an intervention group and a control group (n = 30 each) in a randomized control parallel trial design. Intervention group participants received an eight-week peer support intervention. Twenty-four volunteers aged 48 to 76 engaged in two-on-one peer support through home visits and telephone calls to provide emotional support, problem-solving support, and community resource sharing. Social workers who are not blinded to the group assignment measured the changes of both the intervention group and the control group participants in a range of psychosocial outcomes including three primary outcomes (loneliness, social support, barriers to social participation) and five secondary outcomes (depressive symptoms, anxiety, life satisfaction, happiness, and purpose in life). Results: The 30 intervention group participants showed a statistically significant decrease in loneliness and increase in resilience when compared to the 30 control group participants. They reported fewer barriers to social participation, fewer depressive symptoms, increased life satisfaction, and happiness while no such improvements were observed in the control group. Conclusions: There is a need to further examine the use of peer-based interventions for both program effectiveness and delivery efficiency. In the era of population aging and increasing immigration, diverse aging adults can be trained to fill volunteer support roles via peer-based intervention approaches. Trial registration: ISRCTN, ISRCTN14572069, Registered 23 December 2019 – Retrospectively registered. Keywords: Chinese aging immigrants, Peer-based intervention, Social isolation, Social participation, Loneliness, Randomized controlled trials
* Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Faculty of Social Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
Data Loading...
