In this study, the subjective evaluation of a peer support program by women with breast cancer was clarified . The women with breast cancer felt that the program had many benefits and some disadvantages. These results suggest that there is potential for peer support-based patient-support programs in medical services that are complementary to the current support that is provided by professionals.

BackgroundIn people with chronic illnesses, self-management education can reduce anxiety and depression. Those benefits, however, decay over time. Efforts have been made to prevent or minimize that “decay of impact”, but they have not been based on information about the decay’s characteristics, and they have failed. Here we show how the decay’s basic characteristics (prevalence, timing, and magnitude) can be quantified. Regarding anxiety and depression, we also report the prevalence, timing, and magnitude of the decay.MethodsAdults with various chronic conditions participated in a self-management educational program (n = 369). Data were collected with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale four times over one year. Using within-person effect sizes, we defined decay of impact as a decline of ≥0.5 standard deviations after improvement by at least the same amount. We also interpret the results using previously-set criteria for non-cases, possible cases, and probable cases.Results Prevalence: On anxiety, decay occurred in 19% of the participants (70/369), and on depression it occurred in 24% (90/369). Timing: In about one third of those with decay, it began 3 months after the baseline measurement (6 weeks after the educational program ended). Magnitude: The median magnitudes of decay on anxiety and on depression were both 4 points, which was about 1 standard deviation. Early in the follow-up year, many participants with decay moved into less severe clinical categories (e.g., becoming non-cases). Later, many of them moved into more severe categories (e.g., becoming probable cases).ConclusionsDecay of impact can be identified and quantified from within-person effect sizes. This decay occurs in about one fifth or more of this program’s participants. It can start soon after the program ends, and it is large enough to be clinically important. These findings can be used to plan interventions aimed at preventing or minimizing the decay of impact.

This study examined the influence of child-care support by elderly persons on mothers' child care-related stress in Japan. A cross-sectional study was conducted from February to April 2007 by using an anonymous questionnaire. This study focused on the "child-care salon" (hereafter referred to as "salon") as a type of parenting support activity by elderly persons in the community. For the analysis, 119 salon participants and a control group of 107 mothers who had not participated in a salon were recruited. As a result of a multiple regression analysis, participation or non-participation in the salon had no influence on the 'threat of loss of personal identity' stress, which was similar to a sense of social isolation because of child care. However, as a result of investigating the influence of the participation frequency on stress score for participants alone, mothers with less participation had a higher stress score than mothers with greater participation. That suggested the importance of intervention for a decrease of social isolation in mothers, especially in the initial stage of salon participation.