0511 Health Benefits to Peers Participating in a Mentoring program for Treatment Adherence in Patients with Sleep Apnea

Abstract

Introduction: Peer support aimed at improving treatment adherence can be effective in many chronic medical conditions including obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Whether such peer‐participation has any benefits to the well‐being of peer‐mentors who administer such peer support in unclear. We aimed to determine whether peers (who promote adherence to continuous positive airway pressure [CPAP] therapy in CPAP naïve patients with OSA) experienced any change in CPAP adherence, self‐reported sleepiness, or health‐related quality of life (HR‐QOL). A secondary aim was to determine whether there was a “dose‐effect” relationship between the number of CPAP naïve patients assigned to peer mentors and health benefits. Methods: We administered questionnaires to peer mentors at baseline and two‐years following participation in a randomized controlled trial of peer support aimed at promoting adherence to CPAP therapy in treatment naïve patients with OSA. CPAP adherence of the peer‐mentor was downloaded at the start and end of study participation. Results: Fifty four peer mentors participated in a trial that randomized 263 CPAP naive patients with OSA to peer‐support versus attention‐control. Peers (aged 57.4 ± 12.0 years; 50% women) were predominantly white with 15% Hispanic ethnicity. Of the peer mentors who were assigned participants (n=23), CPAP adherence (usage > 4 hours/night) did not change from baseline (93.1 ± 12.1%) to end of study participation (90.9 ± 16.1% P=0.57); vigilance subdomain of the Functional Outcomes Sleep Questionnaire (FOSQ) improved from 3.5 ± 0.55 to 3.8 ± 0.33 (P=0.04); global FOSQ scores and Epworth sleepiness scores tended to improve 18.1 ± 2.2 to 18.7 ± 1.7 (P=0.13) and 6.4 ± 5.0 to 5.2 ± 3.7 (P=0.14), respectively. The number of assigned CPAP naive patients to peer mentors was positively correlated with Global FOSQ score (beta= 0.42; P=0.011) and negatively correlated with Epworth sleepiness score (beta = ‐ 0.60; P=0.046). Conclusion: Peer‐mentors experienced health benefits to sleepiness and health‐related quality of life by participating in a peer‐support program with a dose‐effect relationship based upon number of assigned mentees.