Peer Support for Women With Heart Disease: Women@Heart

University of Ottawa Heart Institute

Status: Completed

Conditions: Women's Health; Coronary Heart Disease

Treatments: Behavioral: Women@Heart Program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03286010

20170613-01H

Details and patient eligibility

About

Women with heart disease are more likely to die or suffer another cardiac event or stroke within 5 years of an index event compared to men. They are also more likely to suffer depression and report lower quality of life. Cardiac Rehabilitation programs have been designed to address these issues, but most women do not attend. Women indicate they have a greater need to talk about their experiences with heart disease and seek social support to help them cope. Peer support, the assistance provided by other women with a similar illness experience, may be one way to enhance social support for women with heart disease and help them improve their psychosocial well-being. The Investigators have developed a peer support program called Women@Heart (W@H). The program is led by trained peer leaders (women who themselves have made a successful recovery from a heart event). A pilot test of the program showed promising results. The Investigators now need to conduct a more rigorous evaluation of the program.

The main objective of this project is to determine if the W@H program helps women to improve their psychosocial well-being compared to being on a waiting list to participate in the program. It will also examine the effect of the program on: health behaviours (tobacco smoking, physical activity, sedentary behaviour, fruit and vegetable consumption, and medication adherence); coronary risk factors; and clinical outcomes (re-hospitalization, health care system use, death).

Enrollment: 180 patients

Sex: Female

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Women who have been hospitalized at UOHI in the past year with stable CHD, including: AMI; stable angina with corroborating evidence of CHD; recent CABG; or percutaneous coronary intervention (to allow examination of mechanisms linking the intervention and psychosocial well-being with health and healthcare outcomes);
2. Women ≥ 18 years of age (the age of consent in Ontario);
3. Women able to read and understand English or French;
4. Women who reside in Ontario and are eligible for Ontario Health Insurance Plan (to permit linkage with administrative data housed at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences [ICES]);
5. Women available to participate over the next 6 months (the intervention and data collection takes place over this time frame -- reducing the probability of missing data);
6. Women able to provide informed consent.

Exclusion criteria

1. Women who have been hospitalized primarily for valve replacement or repair, HF, pulmonary hypertension, endocarditis or pericarditis (to reduce heterogeneity and avoid confounding when examining mechanisms linking the intervention and psychosocial well-being with health and healthcare outcomes);
2. Women who, in the opinion of the UOHI clinical psychologist, manifest psychiatric illness or cognitive impairment that would preclude participation in W@H (i.e. they are unable to benefit from the intervention, to prevent disruption of other participants).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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180 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in the W@H group will be assembled in small groups of 6-12 participants and attend 12-biweekly sessions over a 24-week intervention period. The sessions will be led by a trained peer leader and will be held in a variety of convenient locations in close geographic proximity to participants' home postal codes. Participants will receive a manual containing copies of learning exercises and educational material. Session content is focused on: emotional support (sharing your story, road to recovery, exploration of feelings, coping with changes, emotional management, coping with distress, effective communication, empowerment); informational support (self care behaviours, risk factor education and management, health care system and community resource navigation); and appraisal support (goal setting, action planning, problem solving, relapse prevention).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Women@Heart Program

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants in the control group will be eligible to participate in the study, but cannot participate because there are no groups within their geographical region. They will be offered the W@H program after their 26-week follow up.