Does a Peer Navigator Improve Quality of Life at Diagnosis?
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: This pilot study is designed to evaluate the feasibility of researching how well a peer navigator program improves quality of life when a woman newly diagnosed with breast cancer is carefully matched with a trained volunteer who is herself a breast cancer survivor. WomenCARE, a well-established Santa Cruz agency providing free support services for women with cancer is the community partner, and the Psychosocial Treatment Lab at Stanford is the research partner. The Peer Navigator program provides emotional support, peer modeling, and resource information for women just diagnosed with breast cancer. Navigators and sojourners (newly diagnosed women) are matched on dimensions (such as type of treatment) in rank order of importance. The pairs stay in close contact for a minimum of 3 months, and up to six if both agree. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Though such programs exist and serve many women in CA, no research is available to test their effectiveness or to inform the training of peer navigators. Our study Cruz would be followed by a larger randomized trial throughout the Central Coast Region of CA. The peer-matched patient navigator concept emanated from the personal experiences of women participating in support groups at WomenCARE and two community-based, patient-focused collaborative meetings where breast cancer survivors were present. Women across the socio-economic and ethnic spectrum expressed the same level of need for mentors or peer navigators leading to the establishment of the program at WomenCARE. With the support of the two oncology practices, these Santa Cruz breast cancer survivors brought their ideas and enthusiasm to the scientists at Stanford University. Thus, the study speaks directly to the CBCRP belief that communities should be active participants in research about themselves. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This pilot grant is intended to test the feasibility and conduct a process evaluation of the peer navigator program. We will train peer navigators who are breast cancer survivors. They will be matched with 35-50 newly diagnosed women (about 3-4 per navigator), and be available for up to 4 contacts per week for 3 months. We will study what happens in these contacts and how the newly-diagnosed women and the navigators are affected by the contact. We will assess whether improvement in quality of life is related to how well these contacts proceed. We will also ask these women whether they would be willing to volunteer for a randomized study in which they had a 50/50 chance (like a coin toss) of being assigned to either a peer navigator or a control condition. We will conduct focus groups to receive feedback from the navigators and the newly diagnosed matched women. Finally, we will prepare to implement a larger study by developing referral networks and training navigators in Monterey and San Benito Counties. 
 
 
 
 We expect that this project will allow us to lay the groundwork for demonstrating that Peer Navigation is effective in improving a newly diagnosed woman's quality of life. It could provide the impetus for expanding and improving the quality of similar programs, and provide evidence to support health policy changes enabling peer navigation programs to be a common component of standard treatment. All women who participate in the study will benefit from receiving more and better organized information than they would ordinarily receive, including information about how clinical trials work and how to participate in them. In addition to providing support, an informed peer navigator with carefully trained communication skills can judge the level and timing of information such that it would increase the likelihood of its comprehension.