Peer mentoring after brain injury
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Peer mentoring for Acquired brain InjuRy Study (PAIRS)
IRAS ID
235597
Contact name
Kathryn Radford
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 1 months, 31 days
Research summary
Acquired brain injuries can be caused in many ways, including blows to the head, strokes and tumours. Brain injury causes physical, emotional, behavioural and cognitive (thinking) problems. These difficulties mean that a lot of people can’t go back to work or occupy their time in meaningful ways.
Many people don’t receive the help they need after brain injury. One way to help is to pair them up with a more experienced brain injury survivor who understands their problems, can provide support and help them take part in activities. This is called peer mentoring.
This PhD project aims to find out if it is possible to recruit mentors and mentees, match them together, get them to meet and achieve activity goals. We also want to know if the participants show improvements in participation, quality of life, hope for the future and mood.
We will recruit people within six months of leaving hospital after brain injury (mentees) and people who left hospital more than a year ago and have characteristics such as listening skills and good activity levels (mentors). They will be paired by criteria such as shared interests and effects of brain injury. Participants will be recruited from rehabilitation services in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, with the help of healthcare professionals, and also through local brain injury charities.
Mentors will receive training and will be asked to meet their partners six times over 12 weeks. Mentors and mentees will complete questionnaires before and after the programme, and will also be interviewed afterwards about their experiences of mentoring. Each mentee will be asked to nominate a carer, who will be assessed on a measure of carer burden and interviewed about their views on the mentoring programme, and a healthcare professional who will also be interviewed about the programme.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/EM/0146
Date of REC Opinion
29 Mar 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Unfavourable Opinion