Authors (including presenting author) :
Ho CM (1) , Fong WC (2), Leung SK (3), Lee KY (4)
Affiliation :
(1-4) Personalised Care Programme (Mong Kok / Sham Shui Po District), Kwai Chung Hospital.
Introduction :
Peer Support Worker (PSW) visited the ward regularly and shared his/her personal recovery story to support in-patients. Under the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, the service of visiting in-patients had been suspended and considerably down-scaled due to infection control concerns. For continuity of support and safety concern, synchronized video-conferencing is adopted in July 2021 as a pilot scheme. In other words, the PSW tele-visited in-patients who stayed in Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and shared one-hour session via zoom monthly once.
Objectives :
This project is to investigate the effectiveness of personal recovery sharing via synchronized videoconferencing with the platform of Zoom.
Methodology :
One PSW shares his/her story each time. The content of recovery story includes (1) the journey of suffering mental illness; (2) how to overcome the barriers; (3) promote health and wellness and (4) highlight individual’s strength. The maximum number of in-patients are 24. A cross-sectional study is designed and adopted. Self-rating questionnaires will be collected after session. The criteria of in-patients are (1) aged 30-70; (2) female with diagnoses of Schizophrenia, Delusional Disorder or Substance Abuse. Data collection commenced in December 2021 and will continue.
Result & Outcome :
The seven participants (n=7) were successfully recruited. Preliminary data showed very positive results. All respondents (100%) expressed strongly agree or agree (1) increased sense of hope, (2) increased faith in recovery, (3) increased confidence to face post-discharge life and (4) relieved sense of isolation in admission time during pandemic.
Conclusions:
As duration of the pandemic is still unknown, peer support worker service that is adaptive to the situation with the help of web conferencing technology is still in demand. Although data collection is still in preliminary stage, it is worth trying to promote to more wards.
