How effective is peer counseling? - Julie Gassaway, MS, RN

We’ve just completed a really exciting research program here at Shepherd Center, because we wanted to see if the peer counseling added value to the patient experience. And from a hospital perspective, it’s very important that patients do not come back to the hospital after discharging from rehab, unless they really of course need to, then of course it’s a very good thing. But we have been able to find that patients who got more peer mentoring during rehabilitation, and also for the first 90 to 180 days post-discharge from rehab, had fewer days spent in the hospital in the 30 days after discharge, and they also had greater growth in their self-efficacy. What self-efficacy means—it’s confidence. “How confident am I that I can manage what I need to manage about my spinal cord injury?” And we did see significant growth rates in that ability or that confidence level in people who had more peer mentoring during rehab.