Senior peer counseling by telephone for psychosocial support after breast cancer surgery: effects at six months.

Purpose/objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of senior peer counseling by telephone for supplemental psychosocial support of older women after breast cancer surgery.

Design: Experimental, randomized block, longitudinal.

Setting: A community-based senior service agency and a community hospital-based breast surgical oncology practice in an urban area of California.

Training senior peer counselors to provide telephone support for newly diagnosed breast cancer survivors.

Volunteers require carefully designed and evaluable training before providing support to newly diagnosed older breast cancer survivors (BCS) after surgery. A training module and 20-h course incorporating discussion, role plays, dyads, and written material were created to supplement core training of senior peer counselors, who provided a telephone support intervention in a randomized controlled trial. Twelve volunteers began the training, ten completed the course, and six of the ten subsequently provided telephone support to 107 BCS.