Peer Companionship for Mental Health of Older Adults in Primary Care: A Pragmatic, Nonblinded, Parallel-Group, Randomized Controlled Trial

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Am J Geriatr Psychiatry
• Personal Author:
  Conwell, Yeates ; Van Orden, Kimberly A, ; Stone, Deborah M. ; McIntosh, Wendy LiKamWa ; Messing, Susan ; Rowe, Jody ; Podgorski, Carol ; Kaukeinen, Kimberly A. ; Tu, Xin
• Description:
  Objectives
  
  To determine whether peer companionship delivered by an aging services agency to socially-disconnected older adult primary care patients was associated with improvement in suicidal ideation depression, anxiety, and psychological connectedness.
  
  Design
  
  Pragmatic, nonblinded, parallel-group, randomized controlled trial comparing peer companionship, The Senior Connection (TSC), to care-as-usual (CAU).
  
  Setting
  
  Lifespan, a nonmedical, community-based aging services agency.
  
  Participants
  
  Adult primary care patients ages 60 years or older who endorsed feelings of loneliness or being a burden on others.
  
  Intervention
  
  TSC was delivered by Lifespan volunteers who provided supportive visits and phone calls in the subjects’ homes. CAU involved no peer companion assignment.
  
  Measurements
  
  The primary outcome was suicidal ideation assessed by the Geriatric Suicide Ideation Scale; secondary outcomes were depression, anxiety, and feelings of belonging and being a burden on others. Data were collected at baseline, 3-, 6-, and 12-months.
  
  Results
  
  Subjects (55% female) had a mean age of 71 years. There was no difference between groups in change in suicidal ideation or belonging. Subjects randomized to TSC had greater reduction in depression (PHQ-9; 2.33 point reduction for TSC versus 1.32 for CAU, p = 0.05), anxiety (GAD-7; TSC 1.52 versus CAU 0.28, p = 0.03), and perceived burden on others (INQ; 0.46 TSC versus 0.09 CAU, p <0.01).
  
  Conclusions
  
  TSC was superior to CAU for improving depression, anxiety, and perceived burden, but not suicidal ideation. Although effect sizes were small, the low-cost and nationwide availability of peer companionship justify further examination of its effectiveness and scalability in improving mental health outcomes of socially disconnected older adults.
  
  
• Subjects:
  Aged Anxiety Article Depression Female Humans Loneliness Male Mental Health Peer Companionship Primary Health Care Social Connectedness Suicidal Ideation

  More +
• Source:
  Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2020;
• Pubmed ID:
  32586693
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC7266585
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  U01 CE001942/CE/NCIPC CDC HHSUnited States/
• Collection(s):
  CDC Public Access
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:5acad29f11f0d0cb66f2b8a54a342c41faf732a9cbdd414e83a5d7ca9bbc742c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/114941/cdc_114941_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 510.39 KB ]