Benefits of 12-month peer support for diabetes self management sustained at 18 months.

Aims: To evaluate sustainability of peer support (PS) benefits in diabetes management.

Methods: Supporting a Peer Leader program through Community Health Centers (CHCs) included trainings and consultations from baseline to 12 months. Evaluation at baseline, 12-month, and 18-month follow-up included primary outcome, HbA, and other outcomes of SBP, DBP, LDLc, PHQ-8, diabetes distress, and EQ-5D.

Community organization guides standardization, adaptability, and innovation: lessons from peer support in the Shanghai Integration Model.

Although there is broad evidence for the value of peer support (PS) in preventing and managing diabetes and other chronic diseases, identifying approaches to stage, scale, and adapt PS interventions is a challenge. Community organization may provide a process for such adaptation of standardized PS and diabetes management to individual communities. This community organization approach was used to develop PS in 12 communities in Shanghai, China.

Peer support in Shanghai's Commitment to diabetes and chronic disease self-management: program development, program expansion, and policy.

Identifying organizational settings for sustainable, scalable implementation of peer support (PS) is a challenge. Development, initial evaluation, and community expansion of PS for populations with diabetes staged in the context of the Shanghai Integration Model integrating primary and specialty care for diabetes. Development Phase with 9 Community Health Centers (CHCs) leading to Community Expansion Phase with additional 12 communities.

Peer support in health care and prevention: cultural, organizational, and dissemination issues.

As reviewed in the article by Perry and colleagues (2014) in this volume, ample evidence has documented the contributions of peer support (PS) to health, health care, and prevention. Building on that foundation, this article discusses characteristics, contexts, and dissemination of PS, including (a) fundamental aspects of the social support that is often central to it; (b) cultural influences and ways PS can be tailored to specific groups; (c) key features of PS and the importance of ongoing support and backup of peer supporters and other factors related to its success; (d) directions in which PS can be expanded beyond prevention and chronic disease management, such as in mental health or interventions to prevent rehospitalization; (e) other opportunities through the US Affordable Care Act, such as through patient-centered medical homes and chronic health homes; and (f) organizational and policy issues that will govern its dissemination. All these demonstrate the extent to which PS needs to reflect its contexts--intended audience, health problems, organizational and cultural settings--and, thus, the importance of dissemination policies that lead to flexible response to contexts rather than constraint by overly prescriptive guidelines.

Peer support for self-management of diabetes improved outcomes in international settings.

Self-management of diabetes is essential to reducing the risks of associated disabilities. But effective self-management is often short-lived. Peers can provide the kind of ongoing support that is needed for sustained self-management of diabetes.