Strategies to Increase Peer Support Specialists' Capacity to Use Digital Technology in the Era of COVID-19: Pre-Post Study

Karen L Fortuna; Amanda L Myers; Danielle Walsh; Robert Walker; George Mois; Jessica M Brooks

doi:10.2196/20429

Strategies to Increase Peer Support Specialists' Capacity to Use Digital Technology in the Era of COVID-19: Pre-Post Study

JMIR Ment Health. 2020 Jul 23;7(7):e20429. doi: 10.2196/20429.

Authors

Karen L Fortuna^#¹, Amanda L Myers^#², Danielle Walsh^#³, Robert Walker^#⁴, George Mois^#⁵, Jessica M Brooks^#⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, Concord, NH, United States.
² Department of Public Health, Rivier University, Nashua, NH, United States.
³ Department of Psychology, Framingham State University, Framingham, MA, United States.
⁴ Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, Boston, MA, United States.
⁵ School of Social Work, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States.
⁶ School of Nursing, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 32629424
PMCID: PMC7380901
DOI: 10.2196/20429

Abstract

Background: Prior to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), telemental health to support mental health services was primarily designed for individuals with professional clinical degrees, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, registered nurses, and licensed clinical social workers. For the first the time in history, peer support specialists are offering Medicaid-reimbursable telemental health services during the COVID-19 crisis; however, little effort has been made to train peer support specialists on telehealth practice and delivery.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the impact of the Digital Peer Support Certification on peer support specialists' capacity to use digital peer support technology.

Methods: The Digital Peer Support Certification was co-produced with peer support specialists and included an education and simulation training session, synchronous and asynchronous support services, and audit and feedback. Participants included 9 certified peer support specialists between the ages of 25 and 54 years (mean 39 years) who were employed as peer support specialists for 1 to 11 years (mean 4.25 years) and had access to a work-funded smartphone device and data plan. A pre-post design was implemented to examine the impact of the Digital Peer Support Certification on peer support specialists' capacity to use technology over a 3-month timeframe. Data were collected at baseline, 1 month, 2 months, and 3 months.

Results: Overall, an upward trend in peer support specialists' capacity to offer digital peer support occurred during the 3-month certification period.

Conclusions: The Digital Peer Support Certification shows promising evidence of increasing the capacity of peer support specialists to use specific digital peer support technology features. Our findings also highlighted that this capacity was less likely to increase with training alone and that a combinational knowledge translation approach that includes both training and management will be more successful.

Keywords: COVID-19; mental health; peer support; telemental health; training.

©Karen L Fortuna, Amanda L Myers, Danielle Walsh, Robert Walker, George Mois, Jessica M Brooks. Originally published in JMIR Mental Health (http://mental.jmir.org), 23.07.2020.