Peer Support Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of peer support in the antenatal period for pregnant teenagers (aged 16 to 20) identified with mild to moderate depression: a feasibility and pilot study.
IRAS ID
302968
Contact name
Fiona H Cust
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Staffordshire University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 31 days
Research summary
Low mood can be common in pregnancy. Peer support is when people use their own experiences to help each other. We want to explore whether peer support can be used to help young women with low mood during pregnancy using a research study. As part of this study, we also want to know how women experience being part of the study. We want to know whether it is possible to do a bigger study. This bigger study would allow us to calculate if peer support has any impact on young pregnant women with low mood.
The study will allocate pregnant women aged 16 to 20 by chance (much like flipping a coin) to one of two groups. One group will receive standard antenatal care from their midwife, GP (General Practitioner) and health visitor. The other group will receive standard care and additional support which will be one-to-one weekly visits from a peer support worker. This will involve up to 70 women.
We will also arrange to speak with the women involved in the study, as well as peer support workers and health professionals using interviews, and explore how they felt about being involved in the study. We would like to speak to 20 women in the control group, 20 women in the intervention group, up to 15 peer support workers and about 11 health professionals.
The peer support workers have been recruited by Staffordshire University to volunteer to deliver this service. They have provided character references, have undergone a DBS check, so they will have no criminal record, and had a day of training to support them to work in this role.
REC name
West Midlands - Edgbaston Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/WM/0184
Date of REC Opinion
9 Sep 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion