TY - JOUR
T1 - How would patients with psychosis like to be in contact with a volunteer
T2 - Face-to-face or digitally?
AU - da Costa, Mariana Pinto
AU - Chevalier, Agnes
AU - Farreny, Aida
AU - Cassidy, Megan
AU - Leverton, Monica
AU - Toner, Sarah
AU - Priebe, Stefan
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (Reference Number RP-PG-0611-20002). MPC research is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRC) North Thames at Bart’s Health NHS Trust. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. The funder did not have a role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, interpretation of data or writing of the manuscript. The authors would like to thank the participants that gave their time to take part in this study. We would also like to thank the staff from the community mental health teams in East London NHS Trust, and the researchers at the Unit for Social and Community Psychiatry, in particular the wider VOLUME team. Special thanks to Tahania Ahmad for her advice with the statistical analysis of the data.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Pinto da Costa et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - Introduction Volunteer befriending can be used to address social isolation in patients with psychosis. Traditionally this involves face-to-face encounters between a volunteer and a patient, but modern digital technology also makes it possible to have these interactions remotely. This study aimed to explore the views and interests of patients with psychosis about different formats of volunteering, face-to-face or digitally. Methods A survey was conducted with patients with psychotic disorders in community mental health teams in London. Questions covered socio-demographic characteristics, quality of life, loneliness, views on the different formats of volunteering and types of volunteers, and their interest in getting volunteering support, face-to-face or digitally. Binary logistic regressions were used to investigate potential predictors of interest in getting volunteering support face-to-face or digitally. Results A total of 151 patients with psychotic disorders were included in this study. More than half of the patients (n = 87, 57.6%) had not heard about these volunteering programs. Many were interested in getting face-to-face (n = 87, 57.6%) and digital (n = 56, 37.1%) volunteering. For the face-to-face encounters, most preferred them to be weekly (n = 36, 41.4%), for one-hour (n = 32, 36.8%), and with an open-ended relationship (n = 45, 51.7%). For the digital contacts, most preferred them to be weekly (n = 17, 30.9%) and through text messages (n = 26, 46.4%). A minority of patients (n = 20, 13.2%) did not use digital technology. Patients with lower quality of life were significantly more likely to prefer face-to-face volunteering (p < .05). Younger patients and with fewer years of diagnosis were significantly more likely to prefer digital volunteering (p < .05). Conclusions The variability in patients’ interests suggests that different formats of volunteer support should be offered. Digital volunteering may become more important in the future, since many younger patients are interested in it.
AB - Introduction Volunteer befriending can be used to address social isolation in patients with psychosis. Traditionally this involves face-to-face encounters between a volunteer and a patient, but modern digital technology also makes it possible to have these interactions remotely. This study aimed to explore the views and interests of patients with psychosis about different formats of volunteering, face-to-face or digitally. Methods A survey was conducted with patients with psychotic disorders in community mental health teams in London. Questions covered socio-demographic characteristics, quality of life, loneliness, views on the different formats of volunteering and types of volunteers, and their interest in getting volunteering support, face-to-face or digitally. Binary logistic regressions were used to investigate potential predictors of interest in getting volunteering support face-to-face or digitally. Results A total of 151 patients with psychotic disorders were included in this study. More than half of the patients (n = 87, 57.6%) had not heard about these volunteering programs. Many were interested in getting face-to-face (n = 87, 57.6%) and digital (n = 56, 37.1%) volunteering. For the face-to-face encounters, most preferred them to be weekly (n = 36, 41.4%), for one-hour (n = 32, 36.8%), and with an open-ended relationship (n = 45, 51.7%). For the digital contacts, most preferred them to be weekly (n = 17, 30.9%) and through text messages (n = 26, 46.4%). A minority of patients (n = 20, 13.2%) did not use digital technology. Patients with lower quality of life were significantly more likely to prefer face-to-face volunteering (p < .05). Younger patients and with fewer years of diagnosis were significantly more likely to prefer digital volunteering (p < .05). Conclusions The variability in patients’ interests suggests that different formats of volunteer support should be offered. Digital volunteering may become more important in the future, since many younger patients are interested in it.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065915974&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0216929
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0216929
M3 - Article
C2 - 31095611
AN - SCOPUS:85065915974
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 14
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 5
M1 - e0216929
ER -
