Bolstering connectedness through peer support: Randomized-controlled trial of a web-based peer support program for adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic autoimmune disease often diagnosed during adolescence. IBD negatively impacts all aspects of health-related quality of life, resulting in physical, emotional, social, school, and work functioning challenges. Adolescents have identified the need for peer support in managing their disease and promoting positive health outcomes. However, studies have yet to explore the peer support needs of this population. The study aimed to capture whether a peer mentoring program (iPeer2Peer©) was successful at improving adolescent disease self-management. The study also aimed to understand the lived experiences of adolescents participating in iPeer2Peer©. Methods: Adolescents with IBD were recruited from three tertiary hospitals in Canada. The study adopted a waitlist pilot randomized control trial (RCT) with participants randomly allocated to the intervention (iPeer2Peer© program) or control group. Participants completed questionnaire measures at baseline and post-program examining self-reported self-management, self-efficacy, emotional distress, social support, and health-related quality of life. A subset of intervention participants were randomly invited post-program to participate in a semi-structured interview to examine mentee program experiences. Results: The quantitative analyses showed no significant differences between the intervention and control group. Three themes were identified in the qualitative analysis: 1) forming a connection over shared experiences and beyond, 2) improving mentee program experience, and 3) program flexibility. Conclusion: Despite the lack of significant quantitative outcomes, qualitative data suggests peer support for adolescents with IBD adds value to IBD care by developing a sense of belonging with peers who share lived experiences. This study demonstrates the complexity of mentee psychosocial needs and challenges in measuring outcomes in peer support research. Clinical implications and future research opportunities are discussed.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".